


ghosted

by linumlea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-01-18 11:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21276026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/pseuds/linumlea
Summary: A decade and a few shattered dreams after they had last seen each other in high school, Hinata is determined to find out why Kageyama became reckless enough to let an injury end his career.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 43
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> boy, am i glad that furudate's hinata and kageyama are wiser, luckier, and just more put together than how i ended up writing them in this fic
> 
> the chapter count may be subject to slight change - the outline says one thing but my heart may end up saying something else  
if you notice any mistakes that i haven't managed to catch before posting, please do let me know! cheers!

The apartment complex Hinata ended up at was ancient. He checked the address twice, going as far as ask a passing pensioner walking down the street with her tiny, yappy dog whether he really arrived at the right building. She looked at him and at the building and back at him and nodded pitifully, the bun of her ash-coloured hair bobbing. What reason she had to pity Hinata in that moment, exactly, he didn’t know.

He thanked her, slapped the cover of his phone closed, and considered the path leading up the rust-eaten stairs with patches of leftover white paint peeling off in small flakes from the railing. The south wall of the complex’s building was crawling with a climbing vine and branches of it ventured out, hanging over the staircase and the balconies leading to apartments, shading them with a green-tinted dim.

It could be a prettier sight if the rest of the building wasn’t so run down; if, perhaps, the owner thought to repaint the walls once in a while. But then, this was the cheapest part of Tokyo when it came to housing. People didn’t care that much here.

He braved the stairs, wincing when they creaked and groaned under his feet. Just as he entered the balcony on the first storey the evening wind picked up and shimmered through the branches of the vine, whispering between its coils. Momentarily, the distant roar of cars from the nearby busy city street was dulled and replaced by the rustling of the leaves, their rippling casting a fluttering mosaic of shadows and shards of afternoon light on the walls and the floor.

Hinata counted the doors as he passed them, searching for a door plaque with the name he was pursuing. On the fourth doors from the staircase he stopped and his jaw tightened.

‘Kageyama’ was written there, in an unsteady, scratchy script he vaguely recognized from notes and papers and match strategies plans they used to make. To see it here, on this small piece of paper stuck in a wire frame on the old, dusty, cheap plywood doors, in a city miles away from where he saw it last years ago – Hinata’s heart throbbed.

The circumstances of this- this thing that in Hinata’s mind was a giant mess didn’t help one bit.

The wind quieted down and when Hinata stepped closer, he found he could just about make out some music – pop? up-beat? - coming from within the apartment. There were no other sounds, no noise of activity, but he might have gotten lucky catching Kageyama in.

In a spur of ‘do first, think later’ impulse, he rang the doorbell and took an unsteady step back, clutching at the strap of his bag laying across his chest. His hands were shaking, insides of palms damp, fingers cold despite the warmth of the approaching late summer evening.

“What am I doing?” he asked himself out loud. He just took the train to the other side of the city right after getting off work, with no prior thought about what he was about to step into. What exactly he wanted to ask Kageyama about. He just- just- just went and- Like an idiot, really-

The rhythm of the avalanche of his thoughts hitched when after a few seconds he heard a shuffling of feet just on the other side of the doors; the heavy, unsteady drum of his heartbeat nearly drowning out the subdued jingle of the keys and the click of the lock. It couldn’t have taken more than a second or two, but the moment stretched for him in a string of connected stills – the doorhandle dropping, the doors opening and the black gap in the doorframe widening, the sight of bare feet on the tiled floor, the stretched out grey gym pants, the baggy tshirt of a washed out colour that once could have been blue, the- the hand on the doorframe, the shoulders-

Kageyama’s face was so very pale, the shadows under his eyes dark and deep. One moment his expression was impassive and tired, and the next his eyes widened in what Hinata thought was horror and his mouth became a thin, trembling line. Kageyama started to mouth a word, Hinata let go of the strap of the bag and was about to say-

Hinata blinked and veered back when the doors in front of him were swung shut, the force of it ruffling his hair.

He stared at the closed doors. He didn’t- didn’t exactly expect a warm welcome but-?

Belatedly, he realized that perhaps that was not the right way to go about doing this. He could have- could have called or even sent a text, to let Kageyama know that he just wanted to talk. That perhaps he shouldn’t have cornered Kageyama in the place he called home.

But, he reasoned as he shifted on his feet, considering, there was no guarantee that Kageyama wouldn’t have dropped the line the second Hinata started talking and that he would have picked up at all if Hinata tried to call again, leaving Hinata to do what he was doing now – starting a siege. So. They might have just ended up in this precise same situation anyway. Both equally desperate but about wildly opposing things.

Hinata gnawed on his lip. Reluctantly, he raised his hand and pressed the doorbell again. When the ringing from within the apartment stopped and nothing happened, Hinata pressed it again. And again. He held the button in; as he listened to the incessant ringing coming from beyond the doors, the physical sensations of his body and the thoughts running in circles in his mind dissociated completely from each other. Someone in the apartment to the left started yelling a steady stream of curses out loud, and Hinata still held.

He let go the moment the doors opened again though, dishevelled and heaving Kageyama standing in the doorframe. His shoulders were shaking.

“You-“ Kageyama started, ground a curse between his teeth, fists at his sides twitching open and closed, open and closed, and he stomped down the corridor of his apartment. He left the doors open and Hinata, supposing that was as much of an invitation as he could possibly get, wasted no time getting his ass inside.

“Sorry- Sorry to intrude,” he said automatically, then cringed, feeling like an idiot.

As he was taking off his sneakers, he could see Kageyama bustling about in the room a few steps ahead. To Hinata’s right was a tiny kitchenette, to his left a closed door to, he presumed, the bathroom; the room in front of him doubled as a bedroom and a dayroom. Kageyama’s apartment was tiny and Hinata had a creeping sense of déjà vu since most of his friends’ apartments looked exactly the same, down to the arrangement of facilities.

When he stepped closer to the room, Kageyama, having been moving around in a frenzy, finally stopped. The room looked like a tidying but erratic hurricane went through it – unfolded clothes were spilling out of the closet into which they were clearly just thrust, the mattress on the floor was haphazardly pushed aside, the sheets sprawling onto the bare floor laid with old, long not replaced mats.

There was a low table in the middle of the room, with a laptop placed on it along with a few cans of energy drinks and a bottle of water. The music Hinata has heard before stopped abruptly when Kageyama reached out and closed the lid of the laptop.

Now that he was still, Hinata saw that Kageyama was shaking. The tips of his fingers trembled as he raised his hand to rub at his face, and his eyes were shifting uneasily about, landing everywhere but on Hinata. Hinata swallowed through his closed up throat.

“Can I sit down?” he asked.

Kageyama startled and gave a jerky nod. When Hinata moved towards the table, Kageyama stepped around it, keeping his distance from Hinata, and hurried towards the kitchenette.

Hinata heard the water running and then the burbling of it boiling in an electric kettle. When he risked a glance beyond the corner, Kageyama was standing with his hands propped on the kitchen top, head hanging between his arms. He was mumbling something under his breath, eyes closed, much too quiet for Hinata to make anything out – but he was pretty sure it was a few words, curses repeated like a mantra. Hinata quietly shifted back.

The apartment was bare. There was nothing on the walls – no pictures, calendars – and nothing on the floor save for the table and the mattress. Outside the window some clothes on a hanging rack were drying, fabric shifting in the wind. Kageyama’s apartment looked out into a tiny backyard and a parking lot beyond an unkempt hedge.

It felt familiar. Why and how exactly, however, Hinata couldn’t explain. There was something about it – the worn-down threadbareness. The neighbourhood. The casual untidiness. A compressed idea of a lived-in home. The lives lived outside of one’s own, so different but connecting.

A few minutes later Kageyama placed a mug on the table in front of Hinata. Hinata peered inside, expecting, he didn’t know, coffee maybe. Even water. Instead-

“Green tea?” he asked, incredulous. Since when Kageyama started to allow something like that anywhere near himself?

“I don’t- know, it’s the only thing I have beside milk.” Kageyama plopped down opposite of him. His face was all crumpled like he didn’t know what expression to make. “And Tsukishima always wants it when he shows up, so I keep it around so he doesn’t nag.” He shifted uncomfortably, mouth askew, and his hand shot out over the tabletop, reaching back for the mug. “You don’t want it, I’m gonna take it back-“

“No!” Hinata curled his arms protectively around the cup. “No, leave it. You were never much of a tea drinker, and I was surprised, is all.”

Hesitantly, Kageyama settled back. His shoulders were pulled tight and he drummed his fingers on the top of the table.

Hinata blew on the tea. It was much too hot to drink just yet, and he watched the streams of steam coil upwards as they eventually dispersed. He was thrown out the loop, kind of. He expected Kageyama to be mad, to throw him out, to tell him to get the fuck outta his sight- and instead Hinata was given tea of all things. After he forced his way inside, no less.

On top of that, Kageyama’s tea-making habit was something new and something unknown – and in the moment Hinata walked into the apartment it was, Hinata thought, something that Kageyama reached out for blindly in search for comfort and familiarity. It was a minute break in a stress-filled situation, to allow Kageyama to think and calm down as he moved through familiar motions.

It must not have helped much, judging by the incessant stutter of fingertips on the tabletop.

“You remember-“ Hinata started and cleared his throat. “You remember when we were in third year I think, when we went to Yachi’s to study? She made us this traditional green tea and it was- it was- disgusting. You were the first one to try it and your face- the face you pulled-“ Hinata bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself and a moment later laughed out loud anyway, his nerves spilling out in a burst. “Almost spat it out right there and then. Yachi was so heartbroken we didn’t like it.”

“It tasted like blended grass.”

“I know, right- I have no idea how she drinks it. Every damn day, no less.” Hinata shook his head. The drum of Kageyama’s fingertips have stopped. When Hinata glanced up, Kageyama was still very much tense – but minutely less so than at the beginning. He kept his hair like he had started cutting it after going pro – short and sort of efficient-looking. Hinata was surprised the first time he saw a photograph of Kageyama with his new team; it was just short of surreal, to think that- that Kageyama was living that life, that entirely separate life-

Hinata swallowed. Kageyama was different, was the point. But they were all different now. No sense in dwelling on that.

At the other side of the table Kageyama shifted again – he pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest in a gesture strangely innocent. There were wispy signs of age’s touch on his skin: the little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. The shadow of unshaven hair on his cheeks. The crease between his brows, the one that used to show up so often when Kageyama was pissed off, was now permanent.

“What do you want?” Kageyama asked finally. Hinata realized he was staring and dropped his gaze.

“I wanted to talk. Ask you- things.”

“Get it over with then. I’m working a shift in two hours and I need to catch a train half an hour before that.”

Kageyama’s tone was no-nonsense and subconsciously Hinata pulled himself up. It reminded him painfully of the time when they used to partner up in school things and team things – Kageyama always insisted on separating serious time and play time, if he allowed play time at all, and he was usually right. Infuriating, really, but it worked well, up until an inevitable point when one of them invented some trouble to get them both into. More carefree times, those were. Now, though, Hinata didn’t quite know where to start – which point to pick to start unravelling the mystery of Kageyama’s recent life.

He supposed he might as well hit where it was bound to hurt the most, just to let it be done with. He tangled his fingers in his lap.

“How did you let that happen?”

Kageyama closed his eyes briefly. In the sunset’s light his eyelashes were casting thin shadows over his cheeks. “’Happen’, what?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Hinata said bitterly. “The contusions.  _ Multiple _ contusions. You had to fucking quit – your team, and ‘all more strenuous sports’ – the article I read said that. How- Why-? You used to be so careful. You’d- You’d tell  _ me _ to be more careful, to watch myself- And then you went, and you-” Hinata’s throat tightened and his eyes welled up just enough to sting. Kageyama’s gaze was downcast. Hinata had to swallow, hard, before he was able to speak again. “You were living the dream.”

“Maybe I was,” Kageyama said. His bland tone wrung Hinata’s patience into knots. “What does it matter now?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You worked your ass off back in school to be able to achieve this and now you’re telling me-  _ me- _ that that doesn’t-“

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Hinata.”

“Then tell me, for fuck’s sake!” Hinata slammed his hands on the table. The empty cans and bottles fell of the table. The cup wobbled and he barely managed to catch it before it tipped over. Scorching tea sloshed on his hand but he shook it off; the sting of the heat just pissed him off more. “Tell me what I don’t know! Tell me more about how you  _ ruined _ your damn career-“

They both jumped when something heavy was hurled onto the other side of the wall on the apartment’s left and the noise echoed off the ceiling. Hinata froze with his hands tightened into fists before consciously making the effort to relax them.

“Keep your voice down,” Kageyama said tiredly. “The walls are thin.”

Hinata rubbed at his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw stars bloom. “Your neighbours suck.”

“You telling me that? I damn live here.”

Hinata giggled. It sounded a little psychotic but he no longer cared. “I’m guessing it wasn’t the neighboury hospitality that made you get a place here.”

“Cheap and convenient enough.” Kageyama shrugged. “I didn’t care about much else at that point.”

“That’s fair.” Hinata sighed. “Bonus points for that climbing vine, though. Very picturesque.”

Kageyama cocked his head to the side. “Since when do you know words like ‘picturesque’?”

“Yachi’s been rubbing off on me. She comes over to Yamaguchi and sometimes I end up third-wheeling.”

“She and Yamaguchi are finally a thing?”

“Yeah. They’ve been sorta like that since, y’know, high school, but it’s only two or three years ago that they made it official.”

“Huh.” Kageyama tipped his head back. “Thought they would get together earlier than that.”

“When ever were you thinking about that? And why would you even think they wouldn’t take their sweet time – it’s Yachi  _ and _ Yamaguchi we’re talking about.”

“Just- thought. I saw them eating lunch sometimes during the third year. But we were with them a lot too.”

“Yeah.” Hinata wrapped his hands around the mug. It was, by now, pleasantly warm. “I always wished they would just get a hold of themselves and stop that dancing around.”

It was comfortable, sitting and talking about- about gossip, essentially. But the lightness he felt – the lightness of the silly talk they fell into so easily – dropped as suddenly as it came. His stomach was heavy in the pit of his chest. The need to know and to understand was nearly perverse in its strength and persistence. “Kageyama,” he said, with more wistfulness than he wanted to show, “look me in the eye and tell me why. Why would you let that- that happen at all?”

Hinata’s heart fluttered when Kageyama actually looked up. He appeared small, strengthless, tucked away in his shadowy, austere home.

People used to prattle about the two of them, when they thought neither of them could hear. About an apparent connection they could all see – or rather feel – between them; something about the like-mindedness, about a  _ bond _ .

As if they could read each other’s minds.

Hinata wished that was true. Wished that he could crack open Kageyama’s skull and take a peek inside, untie the knots of whatever sat in Kageyama’s thoughts. He wished, so desperately, that he could see Kageyama’s reasoning the way he could see his own – know the how’s and why’s, see them laid out neatly, labelled with colourful pieces of paper for better recognition. But Kageyama was as unreadable as he used to be, maybe even more with the years of different experiences wedged between them like an unscalable wall.

They were never able to communicate with words, and it seemed like nothing changed. It was apparently the only thing that didn’t change, and what a bitter-tasting thought that was on Hinata’s tongue.

“What do you care?”

Hinata’s head snapped up. He stared, unblinking, into Kageyama’s face which appeared slightly more animated than before. “What do I- Are you this fucking dumb?”

Kageyama bristled. His expression, with some delays and hesitation of long unused cogs, shifted into something far more familiar – a scowl. 

A real, actual scowl, and Hinata for some ungodly, irrational reason felt himself relax at its sight. “Of course I care! I’m- You’re- You’re the only one that made it. You’re the only one that was able to- to continue- and I- the rest of us- we were just left behind-“ Hinata realized that he had risen half out of his seat and dropped down. “I was- we were all watching your career. You were- our- our glimpse into what it was like. You know, the pros. And you- you- you blew it all! You fucking dumb piece of-”

The words were strangled in his throat when Kageyama seized his collar and lifted him – an inch, two maybe – with a strong, but trembling hand. Kageyama’s mouth was shifting into a snarl- and then he deflated. He let go of Hinata’s shirt and rubbed at his face, anguished. Hinata’s hands that lifted to grasp at Kageyama’s arm dropped back into his lap.

“And now you’re not even getting properly mad,” Hinata said. He felt incredulous. This was all wrong. He could deal with Kageyama’s anger. He could deal with Kageyama being a bundle of unresolved temperament.

What he couldn’t deal with was this- this wavering. This lukewarm mildness, milkiness, vanilla, indifference-

“What happened to you?” he asked. “Why won’t you get mad at me?”

“For what? What am I supposed to get mad about?”

“I don’t know- You used to- You used to get mad about the stupidest shit, you would curse me out for calling you a dumbass, and we would trash each other until it was sorted out, and now I barged into your house and I’m calling you out on your bullshit, and you’re goddamn offering me tea! ”

“What else am I supposed to do? What, are you gonna go nicely if I show you the doors?”

“No,” Hinata said sullenly. “Not until I get what I came here for.”

“There you fucking have it.” Kageyama flipped his hands. “No point in even trying.”

“Why are you so logical about this? It makes no sense!”

“I did my growing up, that’s why. Unlike someone.”

“You- fucking-“ Hinata started to twitch. The irritation was biting into his muscles and if he could, he would jump outside right that second to yell and run until he run out of strength and- fuck, he was going to have to drop by gym later to burn all of this energy out. “Just- tell me why. That’s all I want. You tell me why and I’m gonna leave you alone. Okay? You won’t have to see me again. I- I honestly don’t understand why you suddenly started hating my guts and refuse to speak to me, but I’m gonna get over it so- just- tell me why and I’m gonna leave. Won’t bother you after.”

“I don’t- hate you- It’s-“ Kageyama pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t explain it. I can’t explain any of it. It just happened. I was unlucky.”

“Luck has nothing to do with carelessness.”

“I was unlucky,” Kageyama said firmly. He sat up straighter and fished out his phone from his pants’ pocket. “And now you’re gonna leave. And I’m gonna go to work.”

Hinata wanted to argue - he was willing to spend the whole night arguing if it came to it - but Kageyama was already getting up. “Can I finish my tea?” he asked instead, holding onto the cup as if it was his anchor.

“Do what you want. Just get out before I have to leave.”

Hinata sat, sipping on his tea and silently fuming, until Kageyama walked out the bathroom. Kageyama has shaved, even combed his hair - and he was wearing a white shirt and black dress pants. Hinata squinted; there was a logo on the shirt’s breast pocket.

“I’m going out.” Kageyama stood pointedly in the corridor. “Leave the cup where it is.”

Hinata picked up his bag and brushed past Kageyama to pull on his sneakers; he caught a whiff of- something. Of- cologne? Aftershave? It wasn’t strong enough to discern from a step away. He filed it in with the rest of new things about Kageyama he has learned today. As he was reaching for the door handle, behind him Kageyama was tying the shoestrings of his polished shoes, movements halting and aggressive.

“Have a good day- uh, evening- at work,” Hinata said. Kageyama grunted in response. Standing in the doorway, Hinata hesitated; he learned nothing of real value but couldn’t ask anything now either. Coming to see Kageyama produced more questions and answered none Hinata had before.

The doors creaked when Hinata opened them. Kageyama didn’t look up when Hinata walked out and let the doors start to close on their own.

Hinata started running; he jumped down the stairs from landing to landing without care about the groans the weary stairs let out under his weight. He was already reaching the nearby busy street by the time he calmed down enough to start thinking in any coherent manner again, the worst of the biting anxiety worn away by the exertion.

He slowed down; avoiding the questioning glances of people who stared at him after his mad sprint, he pulled out his phone and typed in the words he glimpsed on Kageyama’s shirt.

When the results flashed on the screen, he stopped entirely and just stared at them.


	2. Chapter 2

His phone rang, vibrating silently, just as he was getting up from his desk to head out for lunch. Hinata locked his laptop and started towards the office’s staircase, holding out with picking the call up until he was alone on the stairs.

He saw Yamaguchi’s name on the screen and cringed.

“Hey, Hinata,” Yamaguchi said as soon as Hinata picked up. His false, light-hearted tone flared all of Hinata’s internal alarms red. “I got a question for you, buddy.”

“Hey, Yamaguchi, I was just about to head out for lunch, do you think this could wait-“

“No,” Yamaguchi said immediately. “It won’t wait.”

“Okay,” Hinata breathed out. He smiled distractedly at an office lady that passed by him, walking down, her high heels clicking and the noise echoing off the walls for a while before she disappeared behind the doors some three floors down. “What’s the question about?”

“Oh, I think you know. I mean, we did talk about this just, what, four-five days ago? I know that your memory has never been good but I don’t think you’re developing early Alzheimer’s just yet.”

“You shouldn’t be joking about that.”

“No, I shouldn’t. You know what else I shouldn’t be doing? Literally hiding in a closet to call you because there is a no phones policy at school for everyone, teachers included, and I’m consciously ignoring it, and ignoring my own lunch, to call you and ask you, very calmly- ah, I’m so very calm right now- to ask you calmly what the fuck do you think you are doing.”

“I’m heading out for lunch-“

“Hinata, did you seriously break into my room to get Kageyama’s address after I told you I can’t give it to you?”

Hinata bit into his lip so hard he tasted iron. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“God.” On the other end of the line Yamaguchi sighed so loudly all Hinata could hear for a few seconds was the whoosh of his breath in the speaker. “I’m just- Why, why would you do  _ that _ ?”

“I had to.”

“Hinata, all you had to do was leave the subject alone! All you had to do was move on! All you had to-“ Yamaguchi stopped. The silence lasted a few seconds before Yamaguchi spoke up again, in a hushed tone. “If I’m gonna get caught because of you, I’m going to make you do all the chores. Or- you know what, because of that thing with Kageyama you’re doing all the chores by yourself anyway. There. You’re going to clean, and vacuum, and wash the dishes, and throw out the trash – and I’m not giving you the trash schedule, have fun figuring it out by yourself – and- and- god, why? Why couldn’t you have listened? Tsukki was  _ livid _ ! He called me first thing in the morning and yelled at me for giving you Kageyama’s contacts and I- I had no idea what he was talking about-“

“I’m sorry, Yamaguchi,” Hinata said. The doors to the building swung shut behind him.

“’Sorry’ isn’t going to cut it. I don’t even know what  _ would _ cut it.”

“I had to do it. You- don’t understand. When you told me Kageyama had to quit the national team-“

“I had no idea you didn’t know that. With the way you’ve been obsessing about Kageyama’s career before I thought you knew about the quitting thing and you got over yourself enough to not care that much.”

“How could I have not cared? I wasn’t following the news anymore because- because it fucking hurt to- to see him where I wasn’t allowed-“ Hinata’s eyes stung and he rubbed at them, startling when he realized there were people walking past him, staring. He resolutely began walking again, getting away from the building and towards the park on the other side of the street. “It hurt. It always hurt. And I was following your advice, you know! I didn’t know about his injury and the- the thing because I was avoiding the news like you advised me to,” Hinata said. “‘Stop reading that, Hinata. It’s unhealthy, Hinata,’ you said. So I didn’t know. And when you told me he had to quit, I just- I felt sick. Because it wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Yamaguchi remained silent while Hinata waited for the light to change to green. Hinata crossed the street and walked past the cast iron gate of a park that he usually ate at, gravel crunching under his feet. Surrounded by trees and with less of an audience around, he felt calmer, and he slowed down to a strolling pace.

“Hinata, it’s been ten years.” Yamaguchi sounded serious. And- And sad. In his mind’s eye Hinata could picture him in his sweater and a pressed shirt, picking at the hem with that sad expression on his face he wore for years whenever the topic of Hinata’s volleyball interest came up. So many people wore that expression when the words ‘volleyball’ and ‘Hinata’ appeared in the same sentence that it made Hinata sick. “You should let go. You need to let go.”

“Well, I’m not letting go now. No way. Not until Kageyama tells me why he let himself crumble like this.”

“This is Kageyama’s problem, not yours. You’ve been denied your chance, and you should heed it. You have your own life, your own job and- and a career to worry about. I’m so very serious right now, Hinata, I-“ he let out a breath. “It’s harmful. It’s downright  _ perverse _ , what you’re doing. Like getting stabbed in the leg and then picking at the wound, not letting it close and bleeding out all over the place-“

“Well, too bad I’m bleeding all over your perfect white life then, because I’m not stopping.”

“This isn’t about me, this is about you. You and Kageyama. You and your obsession-“

“If I try to let go-“ Hinata stopped. He looked up into the treetops and watched the leaves and tiny parts of the sky visible in-between shift in the wind. “If I try to let go, it will just hurt more. I know it. I’m tired, Yamaguchi. Sometimes just plastering a band-aid over a wound doesn’t help it heal. Sometimes you gotta clean it out before it can heal.”

“You aren’t cleaning out a new wound. You’re reopening an old one.”

“You can’t see it from my perspective. And- and you’re right about something. It’s about both Kageyama and me, because I have seen Kageyama and- he has changed. For much worse. I want to- do something. I want to know.”

“Kageyama doesn’t need you,” Yamaguchi said, and Hinata missed a step, stumbling. “Kageyama needs to get on with his life just as you need to do.”

“Yamaguchi-“

“If anything Kageyama needs, it’s peace and quiet. He is getting that, with Tsukki’s help, and you know what? When Tsukki called today, he told me about Kageyama. He told me that because of  _ you _ , Kageyama was nearly sick at work yesterday. And when Kageyama told Tsukki that it was you who was causing this trouble-“ Yamaguchi trailed off. “I haven’t heard Tsukki yell before, did you know that? But he yelled. He yelled at me because he thought I mindlessly gave up what I knew about Kageyama to you.”

“Tell him that you didn’t give me shit.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I told him that straight away. And I told him that I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep you away.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about-“

“I do though, and I regret ever mentioning Kageyama to you at all. Frankly, I’m starting to regret the idea of the reunion too since it brought it all up.”

A few steps ahead Hinata saw an empty bench. He sat down, heavy and hungry and tired, and unable to press ‘end call’ just yet. “You shouldn’t regret that. It’s a good idea to try to get everyone together – we haven’t seen most of the old team for good five years. Last we have seen them was when Daichi was getting married. He has had two kids since, so, well. I would say it’s been a while.”

Yamaguchi sighed, “Yeah,” and didn’t speak for a moment, leaving Hinata to wait. When he spoke again, Hinata’s stomach dropped and his throat tightened. “I was really disappointed, you know. In you. And- and kind of betrayed. I thought I could trust you since we have been friends for so long and we’ve been sharing the apartment. Turns out I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that and I know you don’t mean it at all. Could you just- just  _ please _ listen to me now? Could you leave Kageyama alone? Could you focus on yourself for now? Not forever, I’m not gonna ask you to do that, just to give Kageyama and yourself some time before you go around asking questions.”

“Yamaguchi, I-“

“I’m not actually asking, you know. It’s more like a command at this point. And-“ Yamaguchi’s voice was cut off by a deafening ringing of a bell that had Hinata wincing and pulling the phone away from his ear. “-and I have to go now, my break is over.”

“Sorry about your missed lunch.”

“You know where you can stick your apologies, Hinata,” Yamaguchi said in lieu of a goodbye, before the line went quiet and Hinata heard the empty signal.

He let his hand drop down into his lap, staring, unseeing, at the fountain that shimmered and whispered beyond the line of trees on the other side of the path.

He fucked up majorly with Yamaguchi, and he should have been feeling regretful about it, he really should. But he couldn’t find a sliver of regret in his heart. That thing wrong with Kageyama, it needed to be investigated. It needed to be brought into light. Why was everyone glossing over it? Why was everyone telling Hinata that Kageyama needed to be left alone when Hinata had seen that it wasn’t true?

His stomach rumbled. He sighed and got up to head for the nearest store - maybe after eating something the black thoughts would disperse somewhat.

The apartment was quiet when Hinata crept inside in the evening; the doors creaked loudly as he closed them and he winced – he should oil the hinges. Knowing him, Yamaguchi most probably didn’t notice the wretched sound at all.

Yamaguchi wasn’t in and Hinata sighed in relief. He was not yet ready to face Yamaguchi’s ire in person – it was slightly easier to listen to Yamaguchi rage on the phone since Hinata was subjected to his voice alone, with no visuals of Yamaguchi’s frustrated rather than angry face. It was a talent, Hinata supposed, of Yamaguchi’s – his ability to make people regretful about their actions with his expression alone. Worked wonders on kids, if Yamaguchi’s class was anything to go by. His ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ face caused guilt so deep that the blackest of sheep just gave up when confronted with it.

Even Hinata, with his years of training, was yet to achieve any sort of immunity, and he was friends with the guy for the last thirteen years.

After popping some slightly stale leftovers he found in the back of the fridge into the microwave, Hinata went back to his room and fell face first on the bed. He felt his bones settle and tendons relax as he laid there, motionless, even after the microwave went off. Underneath him, the flower-patterned quilt – a gift from his mother – laid crumpled and uneven; he thoughtlessly traced his fingers over the twists of petals and stems and leaves on the cream-white background.

He didn’t register, as it usually was, the moment he fell asleep. One moment it was still late afternoon, the sun having only just begun to set, and the next he was blinking through the sand in his eyes to the dark dusk outside the windows, to the purple and blue and gray shadows sitting in the corners, and to a distant jingle of keys in the lock of the apartment’s doors.

By the time he realized of implications of that, Yamaguchi was already inside and walking down the corridor, and Hinata froze, tense, still lying on his bed, fully clothed and with the doors to his room wide open.

He remained motionless while Yamaguchi dropped something heavy – his book bag – in his own room, shuffled tiredly over into the kitchen where he spent a minute or two or maybe three – Hinata never had a good grasp on the flow of time – and then back into the corridor, and, oh the horror, into Hinata’s room.

Hinata’s bed dipped when Yamaguchi sat down on it.

“You left your dinner in the microwave,” Yamaguchi said. “Quite a while ago, I guess.”

“Yeah, I fell asleep. Sorry.”

Yamaguchi hummed. Hinata counted to five and rolled over onto his back, but Yamaguchi was facing away, looking out the dark, dark window, and Hinata couldn’t see much beyond the drooping slope of his shoulders and the hunched back.

“Long day at work?” he tried.

Yamaguchi shrugged. “Had a lot of tests to check. Takes a while to get it all done.”

“Your kids doing okay?”

“They are not- not my kids.”

“The kids in your class, then.” Hinata rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah, they are doing okay. Have been bugging me to get their PE teacher to play more volleyball with them.”

Hinata grinned. “Good little squirts.”

“It’s your fault, because of that time you came to pick me up and started playing with them after school was out for the day. They never wanted volleyball ever before.”

“I’m not going to apologize for having a positive impact on young minds.”

“You’ve never had a positive impact on a single mind in your life.”

“Harsh.” Hinata tried to kick Yamaguchi off the bed, but the gymnastics of it were slightly too complicated – he almost fell off the bed himself, with Yamaguchi remaining perfectly unscathed, Hinata’s foot having missed his back completely. Hinata scrambled to keep himself on the bed, clutching fistfuls of the quilt in his hands.

“Graceful like an otter out of water,” Yamaguchi said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re really, really mean today, you know that?”

“Guess whose fault is that,” Yamaguchi said bitterly.

Hinata clamped his mouth shut.

Yamaguchi faced away again. “Don’t take me wrong, I’m still mad at you, I’m just too tired to do anything about that right now. We’ll deal with this mess later, when Tsukki calms down too, and we all can have a nice long chat, all of us, and you will promise Tsukki in person that you’re going to leave Kageyama alone. And you will ask Tsukki to tell Kageyama that you’re sorry for bothering him.”

Hinata sat up. “I’ll apologise to Tsukishima, fine, no problem-” he said, anger bubbling, “-but I will not leave Kageyama alone.”

“You will, if I can help it.”

“Yamaguchi, I swear to god-“

“’Swear to god’? You sit your ass down and listen – I’ve had it with you.” Yamaguchi rose from the bed, expression thunderous. “I told you that Kageyama has problems and to leave him alone until he figures himself out. I told you that I won’t give you his number or anything else until Kageyama himself consents to it. I promised Tsukki I will keep you away because we all know that these days Hinata-and-Kageyama mix goes down everyone’s throats about as well as soap. And what did you do? What did you do mere hours later? You broke into my room and you went through my desk!”

“I didn’t break into your room, though. I just walked in, it’s not like it was closed.”

“It was not closed because I trusted you!” Yamaguchi threw his hands up in the air in frustration.

“Okay.” Hinata bit his lip. “I had to do it, though.”

“No, you damn well did not.”

Hinata rose from the bed, reaching for the jumper hanging on the chair by his desk. “I have no way of proving it now, not yet, but soon enough you will see. You and everyone else will see that I was right to force Kageyama out.”

“Hinata, don’t you dare-“

“I’m going out.” Already in the corridor, he whirled around to stick his head back into his room; Yamaguchi was frozen, expression of disbelief on his face. “And one more thing – I saw the ring in the drawer. If you don’t propose to Yacchan, I’m going to do it for you, as if we were kids back in elementary school.”

Yamaguchi’s cheeks and neck were dusted red. “I’m- you- don’t you damn dare-“

“See you later, Yamaguchi.”

He skipped down the corridor and out the front door, letting it close behind him with a thud. He took a breath – in and out, in and out, listening to whether Yamaguchi decided to follow him or if Hinata has shocked him enough to render him motionless – and started walking towards the staircase.

Yamaguchi didn’t follow him. Hinata began descending down the stairs, and when he was out of the building, his autopilot kicked in and he turned towards the station.

He didn’t remember the last time he truly fought with Yamaguchi. Had it ever happened at all? Did they ever fight like they fought today? There were some spats when they both had a bad day, but it never evolved quite that far. Usually they just put themselves in timeout for a few hours and by the time they emerged from their respective rooms their moods have improved enough that they were able to communicate what the problem was and how to solve it. 

The oddness of their current situation was off-putting.

He was nearly half-way to the station when he felt his phone ring in his pocket. He prayed it wasn’t Yamaguchi - he wasn’t ready to talk to him again just yet.

It wasn’t.

“Hi, mom,” Hinata said and, suddenly overcome with relief and longing he knew no certain source of, he stopped in the middle of the street, his shoulders slumped under the terrible weight of shame of his own recent misdeeds. “Sorry, I- I haven’t called in a while, have I?”

“You haven’t,” she admonished, voice gentle. He smiled in spite of himself, until she continued. “What had you so busy that you forgot to let your own mom know that you’re still alive?”

Hinata grimaced. How was he supposed to describe all of the incidents that took place in his life recently, and not worry her?

“Shouyou?”

“Sorry, I was...” He bit down on his lower lip, hard. “A friend of mine is in trouble, and I’m trying to find out why. And how to help him. And-“ he sighed, rubbing his forehead, “-and neither him nor any of our mutual friends are cooperating. I even fought with Yamaguchi over it. I have done some things wrong, but- I honestly think that I’ve done them for the best.”

“Do I want to know what you have done?”

“No.” Hinata cringed. “You most probably don’t. And I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough.” She sighed. “That friend who is in trouble - is he a long time friend?”

Hinata pondered that. Was he? “We were good friends for a while, but then things went to shit and we haven’t talked for years. Up until now.”

He heard a sound on the other end of the line, a metallic clanking sort. His mom hesitated before she spoke up again. “Is it about Kageyama? And his injury?”

Hinata’s throat squeezed. “Why?” he asked, voice tight.

“Just an inkling.”

“Yes.” Hinata stared out into the night-covered street. “Yeah. It’s about him. How- How do you know about his-?”

“Oh, Shouyou,” she sighed. “Back when you were a teenager you were always going on about volleyball this and volleyball that. I had no idea what you were talking about most of the time, so I read up a little. Started noticing when they were talking about it on TV and radio. I sort of never stopped listening, even after you seemed to have. They were talking a lot about Kageyama a while back – two years ago? I think. How much of a shame it was.”

“Yeah. It was a shame. Is. Is a shame” Hinata swallowed. “Thank you. For- For being interested in the thing I was so invested in, back then. I think I never really noticed.”

“I did it for my own benefit, mostly. After all, I just wanted to understand you.”

“It makes me happy, still,” he said. He could feel his mother’s smile, even if he couldn’t see it.

“Do you want to talk about Kageyama, Shouyou? What to do with him? I figure you know best what his problems are about but sometimes just talking about it out loud helps.”

“No, I think- I think I don’t know enough just yet. I need to learn more – there is just this something that makes me wonder- I don’t know. There is a lot that I have to ask him. And I will if I have a damn chance. Sorry for cursing.”

She hummed. Hinata shivered when a cold gust of wind penetrated his jumper, slipping underneath and raising goosebumps along his spine. He has been standing out here, on the street, for a while now, and he hesitated before moving forward, walking along the brick wall of the neighbourhood house. It was cold for a summer night.

He wondered if the bar where Kageyama, as Hinata found out, worked was uptight enough to care about what customers wore. Hinata didn’t have much in terms of fancy clothes; there was one suit he used when he was job hunting, and beyond that there were mostly jumpers and t-shirts. He would have to ask Yamaguchi for advice- or Yachi, if Yamaguchi didn’t ease up soon. Yachi was good at that clothes business. Or maybe Natsu?

“When will you be coming home, Shouyou? We miss you, you know.”

“I know, I know, miss you too – and actually I have good news about that. Yamaguchi is organizing a reunion for our old team, and it will be back in Miyagi because a lot of people live there, and I guess those that moved out before wanted a chance to visit too. It’s gonna be in three months time, first weekend of November.”

“Oh.” She hesitated. “Well, that’s not very good – your father and I were going to visit your grandma that weekend, so it would be just you and Natsu.” She sounded sad. “Unless- Unless you could come a day or two earlier? Spend some time with us?”

“Sure,” Hinata said and smiled when she laughed, pleased. “I’ve gotta use up those vacation days at some point.”

“You’re a sweetheart. Work treating you okay?”

“Yeah, no problems. The company is okay, as much as it can be-“

He jumped a few feet away when a dog started barking literal inches away from his leg, from beyond a cast iron fence.

“Are you outside?” his mom asked as he tried to not let his heart hammer its way through the cage of his ribs. “At this hour?! Where in the world are you going?”

“Just for a walk,” Hinata lied. “Sometimes I just need to tire myself out before I can sleep.”

“Isn’t Tokyo dangerous at night? Is that neighbourhood safe? Go back home, I don’t like the thought of you walking on the streets so late.”

“Mom, it’s not even 10pm. And I’m a grown ass man.”

“You’re my child, first and foremost, and none of my children will be walking the streets at night if I can help it.”

Hinata sighed. He gazed towards the brightly lit station just a little ways up the street, and he turned on his heel, retracing his steps from a few minutes before, making sure to keep his distance from the still furiously barking dog. “Alright, I’m going back now.”

She sniffed. It sounded peculiarly content. “Call us sometime, okay? We are all worried when you stay silent for too long.”

“I will.”

“And- And keep an eye out for that Kageyama boy. I’m sure he is hurting. Oh, and I sent you a package with some food! Share some with him, would you?”

Hinata rubbed the side of his face. “I will. Thanks, mom.”

“Alright. Take care, sweetheart. Ah-” She stopped and Hinata heard some muffled voices. ”Your sister wants to talk. Make sure to call next week, and don’t wander the streets at ungodly hours! There, I’m giving you to her now.”

“Alright-”

“Sho? Can I borrow the weights in your old room?” Natsu asked. “Need them for arm curls.”

“You don’t really have to ask, you know, if you need something just take it. It’s not like I’m using any of that stuff now. As long as it’s not my underwear you’re taking, of course.”

“Gross.”

Hinata laughed. “What do you need to do arm curls for? Won’t those weights be too heavy?”

“I have to build up my strength, alright? A guy challenged me to an arm-wrestling contest.”

Hinata quirked his brow up. If he knew anything about relationships, this sounded familiar. “He is hitting on you then.”

“He is- He isn’t-” She stopped. Hinata had to bite his lip to not laugh out loud. Finally, she petulantly said, “Maybe. I’m not about to lose to him, though.”

“Of course. And should you lose, I’ll come back home to fight him in your honour.”

“I can fight for my own honour just fine, thanks. So I take it I can use the weights, then?”

“Sure.”

“Alright. Heard you’re gonna be visiting in a few months? Finally, mom’s been on pins and needles since you last came around. You know she loves it when you come home, even if it’s just for a day or two.”

“I know. I’ll try to come home more often but you know how it is when you start a new job. Gotta try to be on my best behaviour for a while.”

“Not like you were ever one to miss school. Or work.” She hesitated. “How is- How is the you-know-what-?”

Hinata tensed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, don’t play dumb! Volleyball, that’s what. How’s that going? Got better about it or are you still sulking?”

“I never sulked-”

“Sure, and I’m prince Genji.” He could almost see her rolling her eyes. “So?”

“It’s fine now. I play with some people from the neighbourhood. And coach kids. It’s fine.”

“So you say,” she said dryly, and cleared her throat. “I’m glad you’re getting over it. I just- I just want you to remember why you started playing, and why you kept at it for so long. Not becoming a pro isn’t and wasn’t ever an end of the world.”

“Natsu, it’s fine now, really. I’ve got a whole bag of other issues to worry about. I was good, but it was not enough, and that’s okay. And I-” he stopped. He wasn’t able to clothe it in words before, that thought about what in Kageyama’s crumble struck him wrong, but he might have just come upon an argument and an explanation. Something that he could use to make Yamaguchi see what drove Hinata to ignore Yamaguchi’s pleas to leave Kageyama alone. “I loved winning with them. With a whole team of people that were ready to take on any foe. Those were- Those were good times. I just gotta focus on something else these days.”

“Mhm.” She cleared her throat again. “Going to focus on your job, then?”

Hinata thought about Kageyama. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

She sighed. “Alright. What has the world come to, when your younger sister has to give you life advice.”

“I gave you plenty back in the day.”

“Like what?” She laughed. “I recall maybe one good advice you gave me, and it was about flirting with boys. It was a good one, though, so that’s a little win for you.”

Hinata stopped. “What? When have I have given you advice about flirting?”

“When you got drunk for the first time - when you were twenty and got into mom’s cooking sake. It was hilarious, you started dancing and then you cried, sprawled all over the table, and then you started telling me what boys like and don’t like. I was, what, fourteen then? I still remember every word.”

“Oh, god.” Hinata looked up into the forgiving sky. “I don’t remember that at all.”

“Worry not, you only made a fool of yourself in front of me. You fell asleep after an hour and woke up the next morning chipper like always. Dunno why you wanted to get drunk back then, though.”

“I don’t, either.”

“Well, that’s a mystery for you. Anyway, I gotta go now, gotta train a bit.”

“Good luck with that. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for you about that arm-wrestling thing.”

“Why, thanks. Remember to focus on something other than the you-know-what, yeah? Have a good night!”

She hung up first, before Hinata had a chance to reply properly. He dropped the hand in which he was holding his phone and glanced over his shoulder, at the station tempting him to go after all. But he turned away and started back towards his and Yamaguchi’s apartment, just like he promised he would. One promise he was actually able to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update earlier than i initially planned because im most probably going to a hospital today for a couple of days (just some check ups, its not terminal) and that means pleeeenty of free time to write. so. new chapter!  
*recent manga events spoiler* → i need to know what hinata's parents thought about his decision to live on the other side of the globe for two years. furudate, please, i need to know! ←


	3. Chapter 3

His day stretched impossibly, from the morning when Hinata overslept, through the overloaded trains, through the stupid meetings at work, through the work that has been pushed down on him after his superior forgot to do it and Hinata had to stay overtime to make sure it gets done, to the yet again overloaded afternoon train that took him to the part of the town he has never been to before and where he wandered through the streets for what must have been an hour before he found his destination.

The city looked different when it rained. As if the glisten of raindrops washed off the softer surface, leaving only harsh edges and sharp mirrors.

Tucked into a back alley, the bar’s sign was only visible if one knew what to look for, hidden behind a corner. The only reason Hinata found it at all was because the light reflected in a puddle on the dark street and the shimmering reflection caught his eye just as he was passing the opening to the alley.

Hinata descended a couple of stairs leading to the entrance of the bar located below the level of the ground and stopped there, unable to make the decision. The doors looked heavy, all metal, with a small circular window towards the top and an metal knob. He hesitated long enough that someone else entered the alley and the sound of footsteps pushed Hinata forward. The doors swung open and Hinata was hit with a wave of warmth. The inside of the bar was dim enough that people sitting in the corners in booths were hidden in shadows. Dark wood dominated the interior, mingled with red and green accents of seats and lamps. To the right of the entrance was the counter, lit brighter than the rest of the room, and there was a man behind it, working the tap.

A man who wasn’t Kageyama.

Hinata sighed. With resignation he concluded that in the end his trip was futile, that Kageyama wasn’t working that night and that Hinata would have to come back another day to see him. But the bag on Hinata’s shoulder was heavy, the bottoms of his feet in dull pain after wandering around for longer than he planned, and since he has already come all that way he might as well sit down and get to know the place.

Except that when Hinata actually slipped into a seat by the counter, the doors behind it swung open and Kageyama walked out, struggling with carrying a crate, his face pinched in concentration. He didn’t notice Hinata, not until he put the rattling crate down and straightened, his gaze sweeping through the rest of the room - and at first Hinata didn’t seem to register in Kageyama’s mind at all, as if Hinata’s presence there was too ridiculous to comprehend. As if there was simply no way for Hinata to appear in a place like that.

But then Kageyama did a double take and paled, shrinking away.

Hinata lifted his hand an inch, wondering what to say to stop Kageyama from escaping-

“What can I get you?”

Hinata startled. His gaze darted up, away from Kageyama, and into the face of the bartender he saw when he first walked into the bar, who was smiling at him now, waiting. Words stuck in his throat, Hinata’s frozen mind needed a second to process what has been said to him and think of an appropriate reply. “Orange juice with vodka,” he said finally. The one drink he remembered from college that hadn’t rendered him useless the next day.

The bartender nodded and reached under the counter to pull out an empty glass. “Have you been here before?”

When Hinata looked behind him Kageyama has disappeared but the doors have only just began to stop swinging. “No.” He shook his head, still keeping an eye on the doors. “This is the first time I’ve even been in this part of the city.”

He swiped his phone over the terminal to pay and settled in the tall chair, glancing between the glass the bartender slid his way and the doors to the hidden dimension of Kageyama’s workplace. It took another couple of minutes before Kageyama reappeared.

He peeked out, cautiously checking the rest of the bar, before venturing out from his hiding. Not even once did he look at Hinata as he produced a rag from under the counter and resolved to stand two steps away from where Hinata has sat down. Kageyama picked up a glass and started polishing it, seemingly giving it his full attention. 

The night at the bar was slow, and the music so quiet Hinata didn’t even notice that anything was playing until he concentrated on it. The few other people in the room made little noise, their conversations barely a murmur, and Hinata could barely feel their presence at all.

Kageyama didn’t acknowledge him at all and Hinata ignored him in turn, sitting at the counter silent and unmoving until Kageyama relaxed enough that his shoulders lost most of the tension that has been keeping them rigid since the moment Kageyama spotted him earlier. The bartender who served Hinata was nowhere to be seen, having vanished at some point while Hinata was pointedly and studiously not paying any attention to Kageyama.

It required a surprising amount of energy, ignoring Kageyama with Hinata’s full might.

When Kageyama shifted a step closer, Hinata kept his eyes firmly on the glass right before him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Kageyama asked, so quietly that Hinata was sure no one else was able to hear it.

“Drinking,” Hinata said just slightly louder, lifted the glass, and chugged half of it in one go. His throat burned and he couldn’t help a half-strangled cough.

Kageyama seemed appalled as he threw down the rag he has been holding. He kept his voice low. “Aren’t you disgusted? Scared?”

Hinata frowned, swallowing through the shallow cough. “Why would I be?”

Kageyama turned sharply and rested his hands on the counter, leaning forward, looking down at Hinata. It was a few centimeters of a difference in eye level, but even that was enough to make Hinata tense. “You’re in this kind of a place, after all,” Kageyama said.

Hinata straightened, trying to meet Kageyama’s gaze as evenly as possible. “So?” he asked. “You’re here. How am I supposed to find this place disgusting or scary when you’re here?”

Kageyama’s face opened with perplexion. He recoiled, opening his mouth, but in that moment a couple of men walked in and approached the bar and Kageyama’s gaze shifted between them and Hinata in indecision, before he left to serve them.

Hinata’s shoulders drooped again. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Kageyama moved around - reaching here and there, pulling out bottles, glasses, a small paper umbrella. He looked animated and his expression has lost the passiveness that had driven Hinata mad the day before. Hinata wasn’t sure he should take the shift in Kageyama’s mood as a good sign, since it has shifted more towards worry and animosity, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

Anything was better than the apathy that Hinata couldn’t read or get through at all. He needed something to hook himself into the workings of current Kageyama’s mind if he wanted to get to know him and understand him.

The Kageyama now was different from the past Kageyama that Hinata had an image of in his mind, and the buttons that Hinata used to press back in the day to make Kageyama spit out his thoughts had stopped working. 

Had Kageyama become a different person entirely? Or was he still there, his essence that Hinata had come to know, hidden behind the experiences in the recent years of Kageyama’s life that Hinata has not been privy to and which rendered him so different from the Kageyama Hinata remembered?

What made a person? What held most impact when shaping a personality?

Has Hinata changed too, to such a degree that Kageyama now had as much trouble reading him as Hinata had trouble reading Kageyama? Hinata knew he had changed, it was impossible to not change even a little during a decade, but to what magnitude? If Hinata from now was to stand next to the Hinata from ten years ago, in how many places would the mold fit, in how many places would Hinata lack? In how many overflow?

Were the edges smoothed out by time an advantage or did they render him too different for him to be the same person?

Hinata blinked back to reality, his hand icy after gripping at the glass so long and so tight his fingers turned white. As he was taking another sip of his drink, the other bartender beside Kageyama approached him.

“Another?”

Hinata shook his head. He returned the bartender’s smile. “I’m on a budget,” he said. “Very strict budget.”

The city was so much different from living in the countryside. Lifestyle- and cash-wise.

“Hm.” The bartender rested his hip against the inner side of the counter, his arms folded over his chest. “The guy over there said he wants to buy you one,” he said, cocking his head to the side. When Hinata looked in that direction, one of the men who have recently came in raised his own glass. 

Hinata, hit with a realization, didn’t know how to respond. The whirl of emotions must have shown on his face because the bartender tapped the counter to get his attention. “It’s not a loaded offer,” he said. “More like a ‘welcome’ drink, if you will.”

Unable to really say anything and with no doubt a weird expression, Hinata raised his own glass to the man. The corners of the stranger’s mouth turned up briefly.

Hinata’s face burned a little, but the drink tasted even sweeter than the one he bought himself. “Do you-” Hinata began to ask, and stopped, gathering his scattered thoughts. “Do you know each other?”

The bartender considered it. “Sort of. He is a regular.” He scanned the rest of the bar. “We don’t really get walk-ins.”

“Except for me.” Hinata scratched the back of his neck.

“Well, you must have found this place somehow,” the bartender said. “Through someone or by a chance of fate.”

That sounded so inane that Hinata actually laughed, tension dissipating. “Fate,” he repeated. “That would be awesome. But I’m afraid I’m only here because of Kageyama.”

“Oh.” The bartender scrutinized him, his eyes narrowing. “So you’re the reason he says he isn’t interested.”

Hinata choked.

“What? Aren’t you-?”

“No!” It sounded harsher than Hinata intended because the bartender took half a step back. “No,” he repeated much more softly, clearing his throat. “It’s not like that. We’ve been friends back in high school. That’s all.”

“So neither of you…?”

“I don’t know about him,” Hinata said. “But I’m not. In a relationship, I mean. I can barely make time to do laundry on a good day. So. I’m not relationship material.”

The bartender kept staring at him, his light brown eyes curious. Finally he threw the kitchen towel he has been holding over his shoulder, and extended his hand to Hinata. “Tamaki,” he said.

Hinata reciprocated and Tamaki’s eyes narrowed again. “Hinata?” he repeated. “How do I know that name?”

“I’m not famous, I’m afraid-”

“Hinata.” Kageyama appeared by Tamaki’s side, his expression bordering on grave. Hinata shivered - his name in Kageyama’s mouth sounded different, so much heavier from the way Tamaki said it.

And looking at Tamaki and Kageyama side by side was like looking at opposite sides of ying and yang. Tamaki, who had the air of lightness in every aspect, from the ease of his features, to the tanned skin and fair hair. Like a polar opposite, Kageyama with his paleness and inky hair was that of shadows.

“Oh,” Tamaki said. “I’ll leave you to it. Nice meeting you, Hinata.”

“Ah, same for me-”

Tamaki waved his palm at him in a small, non-verbal ‘bye bye’, and turned, stalking away to the other end of the counter, where he settled, ostensibly not looking at Kageyama and Hinata. One of the regulars started talking to him, and Tamaki laughed out loud, flapping his hands as he replied.

“He’s nice,” Hinata said.

Kageyama actually, audibly, ground his teeth. “You need to leave,” he said, voice lowered to a near growl.

“Why? I mean, I was going to go anyway once I finish the-”

“You’re making my life difficult just by existing, and you coming here is the last straw.” Kageyama leaned on the counter again, towering over Hinata. His voice dropped even lower while his eyes gleamed. “Fuck off.”

Hinata swallowed. “Fuck you,” he said just as quietly. He downed the rest of the glass and got up, trying to find the gaze of the man who bought him the drink. When their eyes met, Hinata smiled the brightest smile he could muster and waved him a goodbye, to which the man, a little surprised, waved back.

Hinata felt his face shift as his features sharpened and he looked over his shoulder at Kageyama, who startled at the sight of Hinata’s expression. “See you,” Hinata said.

Outside, the rain was drizzling, disturbing the perfect dark mirror of a puddle in which the bar’s sign reflected. Hinata pulled up his collar and started running, the cold rainwater splashing with each his step.

He didn’t understand anything. He learned nearly nothing. But Kageyama was more animated than the day before, his shell cracking, his expression in a shift. This wasn’t the Kageyama Hinata knew, but it was okay. It was okay.

As long as Kageyama spoke, Hinata was going to be able to learn about him. In Kageyama’s half spoken thoughts and hostility, somewhere, was hidden the truth, and Hinata was going to dig it out.

On the weekend Hinata, as per his carefully crafted schedule, went to the nearby sports centre. He was early and started to prepare the court by himself, but within a few minutes a couple of kids ran in, lighting up when they saw him.

“Hinata-san! Good morning!” they all called, and, unasked, ran to fetch the ball cart. Within the next fifteen minutes, the whole group was present, save for one boy.

“Is he sick?” Hinata asked the boy’s teammates. 

They nodded. “He said he has been barfing since yesterday! And he hasn’t gone to school.”

“Hmm,” Hinata hummed. “Too bad for him, especially since today is spiking practice.”

A few kids straightened, staring at Hinata in anticipation, and he couldn’t help a grin.

“Alright! Stretch properly and then I’m gonna show you how we’re gonna go about practicing spiking. Remember to pay attention to your arms and palms today, okay?”

“Okay!”

They spread out, doing their best to stretch. Hinata weaved between them, correcting and giving tips. One of the boys, Kino, stretched just fine but his face was sullen. Hinata crouched next to him. “You alright?” Hinata asked him.

Kino nodded wordlessly. Hinata waited, knowing that more was coming, and after a few seconds was rewarded when Kino frowned. “Inoue is missing spiking practice,” Kino mumbled.

The absent boy, Inoue. “It’s not like we’re not gonna practice it again, you know,” Hinata said.

“Yeah, but-” Kino harrumphed as he leaned forward, wrapping his palms around his feet with no apparent trouble. God, kids were naturally so flexible, Hinata’s joints hurt at the sight. Has he ever been able to do that that easily? He couldn’t believe it. “I wanted to toss to him. Because we’re partners.”

Kino and Inoue. Inoue and Kino. A duo that formed early on when one of them discovered tossing and the other spiking, and they teamed up, forming a ferocious pair that fed off each other’s enthusiasm. It stung a little.

Each time he saw them, Hinata couldn’t help but wonder - what if…? What if Hinata had seen the glimpse of his wings in volleyball just a couple of years earlier? What if they unfolded differently?

What if-?

“It’s not the end of the world,” Hinata said. “He’s going to be back next week and you’ll toss to him again. But for today, make sure to look carefully and learn a lot so you can show Inoue-kun later, alright? And,” Hinata winked at Kino, “and if you just happen to come a bit earlier next week, you and Inoue-kun, I just might be early too, and maybe I’ll teach you some cool tossing and spiking tricks.”

Kino lit up. “Thanks, Hinata-san!”

Hinata grinned and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Remember to stretch your arms.”

_ Because we’re partners _ , Kino had said. Hadn’t Hinata said the same thing, in the past? Years ago? So long ago that it seemed more like a dream? Sort of an embarrassing dream, if he was to be honest.

Kino was feeling down because his partner wasn’t there.

In Hinata’s mind the cogs started turning. It was a childish thing, to be down just because one’s partner was absent, but missing one’s presence wasn’t a thing only a child could feel. Not feeling like one hundred percent because someone special was missing was universal.

When had Kageyama’s down time started? Had he, while Hinata wasn’t looking, found a partner that was that essential to his volleyball experience? Had they become separated and had Kageyama, as a consequence, lost just enough of his enthusiasm to be just enough careless for an accident to happen?

When Hinata sat down with his laptop in the evening that day, he found nothing on the internet that could have supported his hastily put together theory. Kageyama’s downturn had no clear start, and he had no apparent special partnership with any teammate.

Hinata closed the lid of the laptop, curling up, pulling his knees to his chest as he sat at the desk in the shrouding, cold darkness of his room. In the pit of his stomach settled a knot so heavy that Hinata found it harder to breathe. 

There had to be a reason. Hinata just needed to find it.

Because if there wasn’t a reason at all, that would have been so much worse.

It’s just his luck that when he arrived at the bar on Monday after work, Kageyama wasn’t working. Tamaki wasn’t there either, and the sole bartender that was present was too busy to make acquaintance with. Hinata left without even sitting down.

The next day at least Tamaki was there.

“Oh,” Tamaki said when he saw Hinata approaching the bar. “Here for Kageyama?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” Tamaki considered it, looking Hinata up and down with rapt attention. “He isn’t in until midnight today.”

Hinata’s shoulders drooped. Still, he slipped into one of the available seats - the bar was half-full, but most of the other customers were seated in the booths and at the tables on the sides while the counter was nearly empty. 

The quiet was soothing. He might as well stay since he came all that way.

He asked for something non-alcoholic, and Tamaki made him something extremely colorful, topped with sugar crystals on the rim of the glass and a cherry sitting on the surface of the concoction. Hinata stared at it.

“It’s my original recipe,” Tamaki said proudly. “This one is on the house since you’re a test subject.”

“I seem to be getting a lot of free drinks around here, I like that,” Hinata said, examining the glass more closely. He ate the cherry first and washed it down with a sip of the drink. He wasn’t able to conceal his cringe at the taste.

“What? Is it too sweet?” Tamaki asked.

Hinata carefully put down the glass. “It’s… a lot. A lot of everything.”

Tamaki sighed. “I knew it. This is the fifth recipe I made and they were all awful, save for one. Maybe two.”

“It’s not awful,” Hinata said. “I think if you drop the sugar and whatever is responsible for that burnt caramel taste it’s going to be good.”

“Would you order it, if it was that way?”

Hinata looked to the side, unable to meet Tamaki’s gaze as he bit his lip.

“See?” Tamaki said, grumpy. “Awful.”

“Hey, at least you’re trying. Perseverance is key.”

Tamaki sighed as he picked up the glass that contained the drink Hinata wasn’t able to finish. “I’m gonna make you something else.”

Lost in thought and occasional short talks with Tamaki when he had a spare minute or two, Hinata sipped at his first, then second, then third drink. Before he knew it, the evening has passed - and a few minutes before midnight the doors to the back of the bar swung open and Kageyama walked out, rolling up his sleeves. He stopped, frozen, when he saw Hinata sitting there as if it was the most natural place for Hinata to be at.

There was a glimpse of either rage or fear on Kageyama’s face before he managed to smooth it out and he turned away from Hinata, to immerse himself in the work he had to do.

No one said that it was going to be easy. Hinata knew that. Still, it was the height of rejection, that refusal to meet Hinata face-on, and even though he anticipated it, Hinata’s chest still hurt as if he had been kicked.

He stayed for an hour longer still, despite the fact that he had work in the morning and that the commute to his home from the bar would take over an hour at this time of the night. As he sat at the counter, his drink nestled between his palms, he caught Kageyama’s glances - confused, troubled, weird. Continuous.

It was like slowly domesticating a wild animal, hanging out in Kageyama’s sight just so he would stop associating Hinata’s presence with danger. Like a wild animal, Kageyama could not seem to understand what Hinata’s constant presence and persistence meant. What Hinata wanted from him. 

Maybe it would have been easier if Hinata himself knew what he wanted specifically - ‘answers’ was too vague, too broad, especially when questions remained unasked in the first place. Well, not exactly. He did ask about things - but the depth of the questions he asked versus the questions he didn’t know how to ask was like comparing a puddle to the ocean.

Kageyama and he didn’t exchange a single word that evening. The train stations Hinata’s train sped by were nearly empty, the lonely figures of solitary people Hinata saw there each wrapped in their own world. Lost in thought, he almost missed his stop.

That night, as he was lying in his bed and staring up at the ceiling, Hinata could not quiet down enough to sleep. Yamaguchi has been looking at him weird for days, ever since Hinata has started to come back home way too late, way later than normally, but he was yet to ask about it and Hinata couldn’t help but think that it’d be better for everyone if Yamaguchi ended up never asking at all. If only he could hope.

The most peculiar thing was that Yamaguchi didn’t seem to know what Hinata was doing - as if Kageyama had not said a word to either him or Tsukishima about Hinata’s constant, nearly completely wordless appearances. 

Hinata turned onto his side, curling up. The anxiety was burning in his stomach, making him nauseous, as he laid, staring and unseeing, until the dawn. 

“You look like shit.”

Hinata startled. His eyes widened when he looked up and saw Kageyama standing in front of him, Kageyama’s frown evident. It hadn’t even been a minute since Hinata walked into the bar and sat down, rubbing at his forehead tiredly, the headache forming inside Hinata’s head like a snowball picking up size as it rolled down a hill, inevitable and getting dangerously sizeable, threatening to split his skull with its weight and terrible volume.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Hinata said. He blinked. “And work was terrible cause I made a mistake.”

“You should go home.”

Not ‘need’. ‘Should’. Hinata breathed in, the weight that has been pressing down at his chest minutely gone. “I will. Just… not yet.”

Kageyama sighed. He pulled out a glass and filled it with water. “You shouldn’t drink.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

“I have no idea what you are thinking,” Kageyama said. “I don’t know what you are and aren’t going to do.”

Hinata pulled the glass closer. “I have no clue either,” he mumbled.

Kageyama was staring at him still when Hinata glanced up a few seconds later. “I don’t understand,” Kageyama said, a distant look on his face, before he shook himself and went off to the other end of the counter.

Slowly, Tamaki inched his way towards Hinata, throwing glances over his shoulder to check if Kageyama noticed what he was doing. His expression was troubled when he finally stood close enough that he and Hinata could talk.

“Say,” Tamaki said. “Why is Kageyama like  _ that _ around you now, even though you used to be friends? I’m guessing that’s not normal.”

Hinata dropped his gaze. “It’s complicated,” he said. Then he pursed his lips. Tamaki wasn’t a stranger, not anymore - he deserved to know, especially if he held something, a piece of knowledge about current Kageyama, that Hinata could use. “Actually, no, it’s pretty simple,” Hinata said. “I’m being selfish, and I’m digging where I was told not to dig.”

“It’s about Kageyama’s past?” Tamaki leaned in.

“Yeah. Shit happened and I want to know why.” Hinata swallowed. “I need to know why because it’s painful. It hurts.”

Tamaki tapped his fingers on the counter a few times, thoughtful. “You or him?”

Hinata blinked, surprised. Tamaki was staring at him quizzically. “Both,” Hinata said. “We’re both hurt.”

Tamaki took a deep breath, glancing to the side. “You know, normally I would have said that you’re crazy and need to leave Kageyama alone.” He returned to polishing the glass, frowning at it. “But no matter how I look at it, ever since you started showing up Kageyama is more alive.”

“You’re seeing it, too?” Hinata straightened.

Tamaki shrugged. “Sure. Hard not to notice since he has been a walking corpse for the better part of last year and suddenly I’m seeing him making actual facial expressions. Like, it’s not really good that it’s mostly irritation or even anger, but. I guess it’s better than nothing at all. Just today, I think I saw him smile at something. With the way he is though, I don’t actually know if it was a smile or a grimace.”

Hinata nodded slowly. 

The cracks in Kageyama’s shell were so very fine, so very thin. But they were there and that meant that there was a way inside. That meant that if Hinata tried harder-

Hinata swallowed. He had tried so hard in the past, with so many things, and accomplished close to nothing. It hurt to try again and again, but he couldn’t stop now. Not when there were small victories just within his reach.

“So, I guess I’m not going to stop you for now. Just-” Tamaki’s mouth pulled into a line. “Just take care. Don’t go breaking things you can’t put back together.”

Hinata exhaled deeply. Kageyama had an ally, here. There were more people who cared about him than Hinata, and potentially Kageyama himself, thought. “I won’t be impatient,” Hinata said, dropping his gaze to the wooden counter. He hunched in his seat. “It never did me any good.”

It took a week more of daily visits to the bar before Kageyama started to lose the look of a caged wild animal whenever Hinata showed up. The near growl quieted down to a murmur, the pulled lines of his mouth and eyes eased - and to see him relax did more for Hinata’s anxiety than Hinata ever accomplished with meditation before.

Hinata was careful too - he gently circumnavigated everything that could’ve set of the alarms in Kageyama’s head, settling for some ‘hello’s and some ‘see ya’s, and maybe a statement about the state of the weather. The waters Hinata has sailed into were unsteady and unknown, rocks that could have sunk him lurking below the surface of dark, murky water.

It was maddening, that impossibility of communication the way he wanted. It did pay off - while Hinata hanged out, not pestering Kageyama any more than he would a distant acquaintance, Kageyama was slowly but surely stopping to see him as an imminent threat. While Hinata talked to Tamaki and sometimes exchanged a couple of words with the bar’s regulars that he was coming to know, Kageyama watched him from the corner of his eye. Hinata could feel his gaze as he would have felt a ghost of a spark from a sparkler on his skin, more of a thought about a sensation than a sensation itself. 

He held out for long, but his patience has never been that strong. 

“Hey,” Hinata said on the seventh day, looking intently at Kageyama. “Do you wanna go see a movie? Just to hang out. For old times’ sake.”

Kageyama froze, his hands twitching, the bottle he was holding nearly slipping from his grasp. “No,” he said immediately.

“Why not?”

“You-” Kageyama breathed in and out. He set down the bottle, fixated on it as he refused to acknowledge Hinata’s stare. “We never went to see any movies.”

“No. But we did hang out.”

Kageyama frowned, finally searching Hinata’s face. Whatever he saw there was apparently enough to convince him to consider Hinata’s words. He looked away, ruminating over it for just long enough that Hinata started losing hope. 

They did use to hang out. Hinata couldn’t for the life of him remember what they used to do then, during those hours and days, but in his memory those times registered themselves as something warm, something nourishing. Something to look forward to.

What did they register as in Kageyama’s memory? How did Kageyama remember the time they shared? Hinata didn’t know how many times they hanged out, must have been tens if not hundreds, and Kageyama did regularly go along with it, so it couldn’t have been that much of a pain in the ass for him. It couldn’t have been a bad memory.

“What do I have to do?” Kageyama said, his voice barely over a whisper, his face pinched painfully.

Hinata swallowed. He knew what Kageyama meant - what did Kageyama have to do to get Hinata to leave him be? Hinata shifted in his seat. “Go along with it. Just this once. I’m not ever going to ask you twice to do anything if you say you don’t want it.”

Kageyama rubbed at his face before his hand dropped back to his side. “Fine,” he said. Immediately after saying it, a flash went through his expression, a brief wave of doubt. But the word has been said.

Hinata, surprised, smiled widely. It might have been a fabricated vision, it might have just been something that could have happened but didn’t, but still he had a sense of déjà vu - as if Kageyama’s ‘fine’ had already happened once.

Maybe it did. Maybe when they started really hanging out in high school, Kageyama said ‘fine’ to an outing or a walk home. Maybe Kageyama never actually said ‘fine’ before.

Hinata didn’t know why Kageyama agreed. Could it be that he saw something within himself that told him that it was the right thing to do? To let Hinata into his life again? That it was somehow beneficial? Hinata couldn’t figure out whether that was true.

It didn’t really matter since Hinata had Kageyama’s word now but in the back of his mind he couldn’t stop trying to fit the pieces together, turning them over and around, looking for something familiar. A pattern. A recognizable shore.

Hasn’t he sailed these waters before?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(:3 」∠)_


	4. Chapter 4

Next Friday evening found Hinata running from the station which was midway between the apartment he shared with Yamaguchi and Kageyama’s place. It was a peace offering, of sorts - that meeting in the middle. Whether Kageyama saw it that way too, Hinata could not discern. Kageyama simply nodded when Hinata specified it.

Given Kageyama’s reluctance in accepting the outing, Hinata didn’t know whether he wouldn’t be left to stand there, waiting, alone, watching people go by and minutes, hours, pass.

It was such a heavy thought that he nearly doubled under the weight of it.

But his fears didn’t come true. Both Kageyama and he showed up exactly five minutes before the agreed time. As Hinata rushed from the station to the meeting place in front of the movie theater, weaving between puddles in which the completely dark sky reflected along with peculiarly sharp neon lights, he saw Kageyama walking from the opposite direction, sticking out from the meagre crowd, tall but hunched.

His eyes were downcast, the hood of his rain jacket pulled over his head, shadowing his face. When he was close, barely a few feet away, he lifted his head and their gazes met. 

Hinata didn’t know what he expected to happen. Nothing really did, except for Kageyama sort of nodding in hello, silent.

It was the same in high school, wasn’t it? They would run into each other on the way to school and if it was Kageyama who noticed him first, he would give that nod. In time, he even learned how to smile - the current Kageyama didn’t do that anymore, but if Hinata tried, maybe, it would come back and it would be just like the old days.

Hinata heaved, breathless after his run. “Do you wanna get popcorn?” he asked.

Kageyama scowled. “No. It’s expensive as fuck.”

“Good call.” Hinata reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small sealed bag. “I made my own snacks.”

Kageyama’s face was a mix of disbelief and curiosity as he accepted it from Hinata’s outstretched hand. “What… is that?”

“Nuts roasted with sweet paprika. Home made.”

“You mean someone else made them and you just packed them, right?” Kageyama said slowly, squinting. “Because I’m not eating them otherwise. I had nightmares for weeks after that time you managed to burn soup during training camp.”

“That was a decade ago! I have learned since then!”

“Right,” Kageyama said. He took one of the nuts out of the bag and examined it closely, with absurd amounts of suspicion, before finally eating it. The first chew was still full of doubt, but then, gradually, it turned into hesitant enjoyment. Kageyama looked between the bag and Hinata, calculating.

“You may not believe in my abilities, but if you eat at least some of them that’s testament to my skills as a cook enough. Just hide them until the movie,” Hinata said.

Kageyama shrugged and ate a couple more. They made their way inside the movie theater and stopped in front of the box offices where the queues ended. The people in front of them didn’t speak much, everyone on their phones as the queues moved. 

“Did you pick the movie like I asked you to? Or did you forget?” Hinata asked, at which questions Kageyama merely scowled and pointed at a poster plastered on a nearby pillar.

It was… Hinata didn’t what it was. There was a wooden ship in the background of the poster, but the people in the front wore modern clothes. For some reason one of them was holding a sloth. 

Hinata stared at it. He took a deep breath. “I’m not even gonna ask,” he said.

The movie Kageyama chose was awful.

Hinata didn’t even feel like getting into thinking about how it was awful - it just was. Nothing made sense, the actors barely tried, and the ship from the background? It didn’t even make an appearance. The ‘plot’ took place in the middle of a mountain range. The sloth didn’t appear either and that the only thing Hinata was looking forward to.

Twenty minutes into the screening Hinata got bored of the foolishness and reached for his snacks. He turned to Kageyama, meaning to ask if Kageyama remembered about his own bag, but he stopped, his mouth closing without uttering a word.

Kageyama was fast asleep, the snacks Hinata gave him gone, the bag empty in Kageyama’s lap. Kageyama’s expression was peaceful - not empty, just tranquil, and the rhythm of his breathing steady. Whatever dreams he was having, they were quiet.

Hinata didn’t know what was the point of them going to see a movie if Kageyama was going to sleep through it, but it seemed like any complaining about it he had would have to wait until Kageyama woke up. He looked back at the screen, unseeing. 

His hands clenched on the armrests. What was he even doing, sitting here? Pulling Kageyama along?

The bubbles of their lives, their realities, were too far apart. No matter how much either of them pushed and forced and struggled and fought, they could not make them merge.

They could not reach out and communicate. The distance was impossible to breach with the words they were able to form, the experiences they were able to describe that shaped them. A tall, tall wall rose between them, silencing the voices that tried to cry out at the injustice of its existence.

No way through it.

Hinata lifted his head, staring into empty space. No way through it. But even the impenetrable walls had a start and an end.

When a few minutes later Kageyama’s head lolled to the side and rested against Hinata’s head, he kept himself still. It was so painfully familiar, that situation. Hinata, even if he wanted, couldn’t count the times when they were on the bus, sitting together, falling asleep and waking up with their shoulders pressed and heads resting against each other.

The weight and the temperature of Kageyama’s body and skin was peculiarly familiar, and, like a muscle memory, Hinata started dozing off too.

He startled awake, Kageyama jumping next to him, when a bang reverberated in the screening room. Hinata blinked at the screen, confused, and then rolled his eyes at the scene where someone apparently shot someone else not-quite-dead, because the currently bleeding guy was still in a full blown monologue. Hinata didn’t even catch why they guy was shot in the first place before the ending credits started rolling.

Kageyama got up, stretching out his back and arms, and turned to Hinata. “You fell asleep,” he said.

“You’re the one to talk.” Hinata gathered his jacket and bag and got up too. “You started snoring like ten minutes into the movie, I was still awake then. So I win.”

“Not sure that’s something to be proud of.”

“I’ll take any victory at this point.” Hinata inhaled sharply and tried not to notice the way Kageyama looked at him, with a pained surprise. “Give me back the snacks bag, it’s reusable,” he said quickly. “And you can have the rest of mine, I didn’t finish them and you seemed to like them well enough.”

“You sure-?”

“Yeah. I have more at home,” Hinata insisted, throwing the little bag at Kageyama.

Kageyama caught it, looked at it quizzically, and hid it in his pocket.

Once they were outside, with light rain drizzling onto them, they stopped in front of the movie theater and Hinata cleared his throat. “Wanna go eat something?”

He was almost entirely certain that Kageyama was going to say no. It wouldn’t be surprising. After all, Kageyama made good on his promise to hang out with Hinata and they only agreed on a movie in the first place.

But instead Kageyama shuffled his feet and said, “Yeah, alright.”

It took them a while to find a place where they could sit down - on a Friday evening it wasn't easy at all. When they finally did, it was in a small restaurant a ways away from any major street, almost hidden, squashed between already closed hardware stores. 

They sat at the only available table way in the back after picking up their food. Despite being the one to suggest going to eat, after Hinata was done with the small bowl of soup he just started to push other dishes around on the plates, his appetite gone. He didn’t feel like talking either. The other customers and the cooks were loud enough that it was easy to just forego speaking altogether and chalk it up to the room being too loud to talk comfortably. 

Hinata didn’t know where the sudden slump in his mood came from. And it was as if Kageyama and he were locked on being at odds at all times - where Hinata’s mood took a turn for the worse, Kageyama seemed to liven up. He looked curiously about the place, glancing at the cooks, at the simple decor, and at the people around them. As if the spartan furnishing was interesting.

Hinata would have been glad to not speak at all until they were done and back out on the street, but unlike Hinata Kageyama wasn't about to pick the easy route.

Kageyama cleared his throat. “Yamaguchi told me you went to college.”

Hinata looked up from his plate. Kageyama wasn’t really looking at him and instead he was picking at his food slowly and deliberately.

Hinata knew that Yamaguchi and Kageyama were in contact. But it was surprising that Hinata was a subject of a conversation for them. And was- was Kageyama really trying his best at small talk in the absence of Hinata’s usual chatter that would have kept the silence at bay?

Was Kageyama uncomfortable with silence now?

“I did,” Hinata said slowly. His food was growing cold and he had eaten so little he felt bad about it going to waste, but his whole body was rejecting the idea of nourishment, making him feel queasy at the thought of taking another bite. Seeing Kageyama try hard to be social was heartwarming, but he went ahead and picked the worst subject possible. “For a while. Then I dropped out. It wasn’t for me.” 

He glanced up and his stomach flipped at the sight Kageyama’s intense focus directed at him, solely at him. He swallowed, his throat suddenly tightening. Even breathing was becoming hard and he fought for a full breath. “I got sick of it,” he said, his voice wavering. He couldn’t look at Kageyama’s face anymore so he kept staring at the table between them, but still he saw the way Kageyama shifted in surprise at the torn tone of Hinata’s voice. “I got so sick of it I dropped out. I couldn’t stand it - the lectures, the subjects that didn’t interest me, the paperwork,” Hinata continued. “Everything was sickening. Sometimes I would nearly cry at the prospect of having to get up in the morning and going out there.” He inhaled sharply and lifted his hands, resting his elbows on the table, hiding his face in his trembling palms. The waves of nausea washed over him, and he had to force it down, swallowing hard against it. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice faraway. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to talk about that. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s fine now, you know? It’s fine.”

Kageyama stayed silent for long enough that Hinata almost managed to piece himself back together. “I’m sorry,” Kageyama said.

Hinata startled. Kageyama’s voice, full of sorrow and just as torn as Hinata’s, made him lift his head.

Kageyama’s face was twisted in frustration and distress, and he was looking at Hinata with an expression that didn’t have an ounce of pity to it, instead full of understanding that went beyond empathy and spilled into recognition. Hinata’s chest began to hurt.

Why? How? What has happened that Kageyama could understand and sympathize with the blackest, blurriest, most nauseating of Hinata’s memories? Why, of all things that could have began to bridge the gap between them, that had to be something they could bond over?

Why did a vision of Kageyama, unable to get out of bed in the morning and suffering, instill pain in Hinata just the same way his own memories of his own suffering did?

Why did either of them have to hurt at all?

Hinata gripped at the tabletop, his knuckles turning white from the force of it but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t strong enough of a sensation to make him stop thinking, make his mind stop spinning around a singular thought, a singular subject. Instead, recklessly, he reached out and clutched at the very edge of Kageyama’s sleeve.

His hand shook and he couldn’t speak nor was he able to look Kageyama in the eye. Kageyama didn’t move; Hinata didn’t know what kind of an expression he was making, couldn’t even imagine any. Eventually, after a minute of silence, Hinata was able to take a deeper breath and let go, and he piled his hands in his lap, twisting them.

“It’s better now than it used to be,” he said. It didn’t feel right, saying that, as it stood in direct opposition to how he reacted just a minute before, but it was true.

It was better. It did get better. It used to be very good, then very bad, and then it just was. Not very good, not very bad. It just was.

“I see,” Kageyama said, his tone composed once again. He didn’t say anything else and hesitantly went back to eating, but there was something different about his presence. Kageyama’s eyes kept coming back to Hinata’s and there was a look on his face, open and thoughtful, and considerate.

Some barrier has been breached. Some wall has been taken down with Hinata’s harebrained spill of heart. Not all of it was gone, but enough that Kageyama has accepted it and taken Hinata’s words into his thoughts, and a single string, as thin as a spider’s web, has been suspended, linking their lives.

Maybe there was a point to vulnerability.

Keen on switching the morose mood, Hinata took a deep breath. “Anyway,” he said and started to tell the most recent tale from his work, about a particularly annoying client that kept coming back with nonsense corrections for days. Kageyama nodded along, following the story with monosyllabic questions and reactions.

Before long, Kageyama started to look tired, his answers growing sparser and quieter. Hinata decided that it was time to part ways.

“It’s getting late, we should call it a day,” he said, pushing away his glass. “I need to get up early tomorrow anyway so it’s gonna do me good to go to sleep early. Those two are no doubt going to be there even earlier than last week.”

“Who?”

“The two kids from the sports centre’s practice that I’ve been coaching extra time. They’re- They’re really good. And I offered to practice with them more if they show up early.”

Kageyama’s brows knitted. “You coach kids on the weekends?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Hinata struggled to answer. “Because- Because I wanted to. Because it’s fun. And I’m on the neighbourhood team. We won a couple of matches. The kids I coach are really good too, it’s fun to see them grow.”

“So you kept playing.”

“Of course I did,” Hinata said, incredulous. “How could I’ve given that up? It was all I wanted to do.”

Kageyama’s face was unreadable, but he nodded slowly, internalizing the answer Hinata has given him. He was lost in thought when they got up and walked back to the counter, and he started rummaging through his pockets.

“It’s on me,” Hinata said, already reaching out to pay.

“What? No-”

“Seriously, it’s on me. I made you hang out with me and listen to my sob story, so it’s only fair.”

“But-”

“Just let me. It was all a part of an elaborate plan from the start, to get into your good graces with free food,” Hinata said. “I knew you wouldn’t say no to it.”

Kageyama scowled, but eventually relaxed, hiding his hands in his pockets. “I’m not letting you win,” he said. “Next time.”

Hinata’s eyes widened. He couldn’t help a grin that split his face. “Sure,” he said. “Next time. It’s on.”

Throughout the weekend Hinata flew on the wings of his Kageyama-related success. But when Yamaguchi knocked on the open doors to Hinata’s room on the Sunday evening, Hinata startled so badly he almost knocked over the cup on his desk. The truth must have came out. Kageyama has spilled. Oh, Yamaguchi’s wrath-

Expecting the worst, Hinata turned to face him, plastering a poorly put-together smile on his lips.

But Yamaguchi looked placid as he rested his shoulder against the doorframe. “So,” Yamaguchi said. He was playing with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “You’ve been going out a lot lately.”

“Yeah.”

“And you look better.”

Hinata shrugged. He felt better, but he couldn’t tell if it showed or not. His face in the mirror was the same as always, it seemed.

“And you haven’t contacted Kageyama again, Tsukki said.”

Hinata’s eyes widened. He bit back the initial surprised ‘what?’ that pressed to get out, and he swallowed instead. “How does Tsukishima know?”

“He has been talking to Kageyama regularly, and Kageyama told him that you didn’t come over again.”

_ Oh _. Hinata’s thoughts scattered. It was a partial truth, what Kageyama had apparently said, since indeed Hinata hasn’t invaded Kageyama’s home again. But he did come into the bar Kageyama was working at nearly every day. Hinata did make Kageyama hang out with him. Why has Kageyama not spoken to Tsukishima about that?

“Yeah,” Hinata said. “I didn’t go to Kageyama’s place again. And I didn’t call him or anything.”

Kageyama’s number was on Hinata’s phone, but with zero calls or messages attached to it, that much was true. If they talked, it was in person. 

Sometimes Hinata opened that empty message thread and stared at it, wondering whether it would be okay to write something to Kageyama. Just a simple ‘hey, you’ll not believe what happened at work’ or ‘i saw this on the street today!’ or- 

Or anything really. But whatever he typed he always ended up deleting.

Yamaguchi sighed, a small smile appearing on his lips. He looked relieved. “I’m glad. Thank you, Hinata. I told you it was for the better if you didn’t see each other.”

“Sure,” Hinata lied. His gaze darted to the side, hands clenching. “Sure. You were right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my sister gave birth today and now im an aunt!! holy shit!!


	5. Chapter 5

The next day Hinata hesitated, stopping in the alley that lead to the bar, the lit streetlamps overhead blinding against the dark evening sky. He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his trousers, slouching. He knew for certain that Kageyama would be in that day, but what Yamaguchi told him had sowed doubt into Hinata’s mind. What was the meaning of Kageyama’s half-truth?

Why did Kageyama feel the need to lie?

No matter how much he thought about it, though, he couldn’t come to any conclusion. He started forward again, down the stairs. Tamaki’s face lit up as soon as Hinata walked in and he reached for a clean glass right away.

“New recipe,” he said to Hinata when Hinata sat down. “This one for sure.”

“How are you allowed to make your own stuff here and give it away for free?”

Tamaki shrugged. “My dads own the place.”

“Oh,” Hinata said in understanding. “Lucky, huh?”

“For sure,” Tamaki said, his tongue sticking out as he poured things into the glass. “And I like working here, you know? I’ve never really wanted to do anything in particular growing up, so when one of my dads told me to come work here from time to time to help out, I said sure.” He smiled. “And it came out to be great - I’ve grown interested in it. Now I’m full time and I don’t wanna do anything else.”

“And you have an environment to try new things in too, so you don’t grow bored.”

“Yeah.” Tamaki topped the orange, sparkling drink with a slice of lemon and slid it across the counter to Hinata. “Tell me your verdict,” he said and leaned on the counter, staring at Hinata expectantly.

Hinata sipped. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as the swirling taste of fresh sweetness and sourness mixed with a splash of a burn from alcohol. “It’s good. It’s really good.”

Tamaki grinned. “I’m gonna call it ‘Sun Twirl’. I’m honestly really glad you like it, cause I made it with you in mind.”

Hinata, taken aback, glanced between Tamaki and the glass. “Seriously?”

“For sure.”

“I’m-” Hinata bit at his lip. “Thanks, Tamaki. It’s awesome.”

Tamaki grinned. “Wanna try the one I made for Kageyama later?”

“You created one with Kageyama in mind too?”

“Yeah.” Tamaki rested his hands on his hips. “What can I say, you two are inspiring.” He glanced over his shoulder when the doors to the back of the bar swung open. “Speak of the devil.”

Kageyama walked in, struggling with two crates that rattled terribly in his hands as he grimaced down at them.

Tamaki tapped the counter so Hinata would look at him. “Ask Kageyama to make you ‘Pulse Blues’ later.”

“Ah, sure,” Hinata said. Tamaki winked at him and left to help Kageyama. Kageyama seemed relieved to have Tamaki’s helping hand and readily gave up hold of one of the crates.

Hinata slowly sipped at his drink, savouring it. The taste left him warm and feeling as if there was something new about the world, rejuvenated.

When Kageyama was free again some time later, Hinata made the request, like Tamaki had told him to.

“‘Pulse-’? Oh, Tamaki’s original. Sure,” Kageyama said. He rubbed at his forehead. “It’s not popular, but he insists on keeping it on the menu.”

Hinata squinted. “You don’t know why?”

“No.” Kageyama frowned. “I don’t know why he wants it to stay so badly. It doesn’t sell at all. Barely anyone wants it.”

“He didn’t-?” Hinata stopped. Kageyama didn’t know the origin or the inspiration for the recipe. Tamaki hadn’t told him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hinata said quickly, feeling like it wasn’t his place to say anything. If Tamaki wanted Kageyama to know, he would have told him himself. Hinata shouldn’t say a word.

The drink Kageyama put before him was dark, glimmering, and the taste heavy with bitterness. Yet, the lingering aftertaste was harder to describe - a tinge of something sweet, fruity, filling.

Tamaki had a talent, actually.

“I like it,” Hinata said quietly. “It’s different. Have you tried it before?”

“Yeah, I was the guinea pig. It’s… it’s good. Not what I’d drink, but good.” Kageyama shrugged, busying himself with cleaning some fragile-looking glass. When Hinata caught Tamaki’s gaze and gave him a thumbs up, Tamaki’s face split in a grin.

Hinata looked down into his glass, at the shimmer coating the bottom that looked like a night sky back in the countryside. In Tokyo Hinata never really saw stars anymore. He missed it more than he thought. 

“Why haven’t you told Tsukishima about how I keep coming here?” Hinata asked Kageyama who still stood barely a step away.

Kageyama stiffened, his shoulders tensing. “How do you know that I haven’t?” he asked without turning to face Hinata properly. Hinata could only see a part of his profile.

“Yamaguchi.” Hinata chewed at his lip. “He thanked me, all relieved, for respecting your wish to keep my distance from you. I was so confused. He said that you said that I haven’t come to your place again, and it’s- it’s true, but it’s a lie too. Because I haven’t kept my distance at all.”

Kageyama faced Hinata, apprehensive. “I didn’t lie.”

“But you didn’t say the truth either.”

“You could’ve admitted to Yamaguchi what you have been up to.”

Hinata clenched his jaw. “You could’ve told Tsukishima what both of us have been up to.”

“So could’ve you. But neither of us said anything,” Kageyama said.

They leveled each other with their gazes. 

“I’m not going to say a word,” Hinata offered. Kageyama, after a second of a thought, nodded minutely.

The secrecy was weird. Hinata didn’t know why Kageyama insisted on it, but he wasn’t about to admit that he lied when he told Yamaguchi that Yamaguchi was right.

Yamaguchi wasn’t right at all. Neither him nor Tsukishima were right. There was a change in motion, centered in Kageyama, and Hinata was growing certain that whatever came out of it was going to change more things that he could foresee at that point.

Thinking so much about this was becoming tiring. He sighed. He needed something more upbeat to think about. “Did you get the news yet?” Hinata asked.

“About what?”

“Yacchan and Yamaguchi are engaged, since yesterday.”

“Oh. Finally,” Kageyama said. Hinata blinked, surprised, when he saw Kageyama smile - for the first time in years, whole years, that small smile appeared again, prompted by something that Hinata said. He hasn’t seen that smile in a very long time.

Hinata’s stomach fluttered. “Yeah, finally, right? They took their sweet time. And there is a possibility that it was me who pushed Yamaguchi over the edge, cause I threatened to propose to Yacchan on his behalf.”

“There’s no way you’d have done that.”

“I mean, no, I wouldn’t have. But the threat seemed to work, right?”

“Right,” Kageyama said, doubtful.

“Anyway.” Hinata swirled the rest of his drink in the glass, the balance of its shimmer disturbed, the constellations that have formed at the bottom of the glass gone in an instant and new forming as soon as the liquid stilled again. “I’ve gotta move out. Find a new place. Now that it’s so super official I can’t be staying in the almost-married couple’s way.” He sighed. “I think I overstayed myself when I kept living with Yamaguchi even after he and Yacchan started dating, but he insisted that it was fine. I guess he was afraid of the finality of living with a girlfriend, like it was something groundbreaking for him.” Hinata paused. “I was thinking, uh. Kageyama, can you help me with that? With looking for a new place?”

“Why?”

Was Kageyama asking ‘why me’? Or why Hinata needed help with it? “Well,” Hinata said. “Just ‘cause. ‘Cause you’re here.”

Kageyama scowled, turning away. He said nothing in response to Hinata’s request and Hinata sighed, rejected. Some battles he won, some he lost. It needed to be enough that he won more than he thought he would.

Hinata went to seven real estate offices in a span of a two weeks, on top of looking at ads online. He wanted to be hopeful but wherever he went it seemed like something was off - the station was way too far away. A busy street right outside. Too far from his workplace. Placed right next to a big hospital, where the wail of ambulances sounded every couple of minutes - somehow the owner who wanted to let the apartment was completely unfazed by the noise and spoke right through it, and Hinata ended up not hearing a third of what the man said.

It was really early into the search still, yet Hinata wondered if he was going to be able to find a new place at all.

Those dark thoughts trailing after him, he went from office to office, from apartment to apartment, looking and not finding. That was until Kageyama messaged him one day, around noon while Hinata was at work, sending him a picture of an offer. A pretty good offer too. Hinata shot up from his seat, ran out into the staircase, and called the number, asking for a viewing. During lunch, Hinata sprinted down the stairs and into the park across the street to call Kageyama too. Kageyama picked up after two rings.

“How did you find that?” Hinata asked, still a little breathless from the run.

“It was at an office I passed by,” Kageyama said, gruff. That had to be at least a partial lie - the address of the office listed as the contact was out of what Hinata was sure were Kageyama’s normal routes to home and work. It was closer to where Hinata worked at. Did he ever tell Kageyama where he worked? He couldn’t remember. He must have let it slip.

But did Kageyama really just happen to be in that area on some other business? Or did he-? “Huh,” Hinata said. ”And here I was thinking maybe you went out of your way for me.”

“No fucking way I would do that.”

Hinata stiffled a snicker. It was hard to tell whether it was true, but Hinata decided on thinking that Kageyama ended up caring about Hinata’s living situation. Hinata hesitated. “I’m gonna check it out after work. Wanna tag along?”

“No.”

“Please?”

He could almost see Kageyama’s eye twitch. “Fine.”

It was just a regular apartment complex, on the older side but kept in a pretty good condition. There was a 24h store nearby, but the complex was quite far from the nearest train station - not that it was the end of the world, definitely not a deal breaker. Hinata has not forgotten having to ride at the break of dawn over a mountain every day in school. Anything closer than that was good enough.

They met up on the station - Hinata’s work ran later than he thought it would and by the time he arrived, Kageyama was already there, standing outside and waiting, his head tipped back as he stared at the clouded sky. When Hinata ran up to him, apologizing for running late, Kageyama berated him for making him wait.

“I’m sorry!” Hinata said, unable to stop grinning. How many times had Kageyama berated him like that in the past? Too many, so many that they could not help falling into the pattern.

“Dumbass,” Kageyama muttered, frowning, confused, after saying it, as if he was surprised the word has left his mouth.

On the way from the station to the complex, they had to cross a small canal which both sides were lined with short, stocky buildings - for some reason that evening the wooden bridges that spanned the canal were draped with red paper lamps that swayed in the breeze and cast lingering circles of crimson-tinted light on the pathway.

Hinata stopped to take a photo, immediately posting it online with a caption ‘looking for a new apartment!!’, Kageyama looking curiously over his shoulder.

“It looked pretty,” Hinata justified. 

Kageyama shrugged. “But why post it?”

“Because it made me happy and I thought that it might make someone else happy too.”

“I don’t get it,” Kageyama said.

“It doesn’t really matter. Sometimes you just gotta do things that make you happy.”

Kageyama’s expression was full of doubt.

By the time they got to the building, the sun has almost entirely set. In the spreading dusk the apartment complex looked inviting, lit with warm yellow lights. The person from the real estate office was already waiting, and he cheerily showed Hinata and Kageyama the small, one room apartment, rattling off a list of things that were supposed to make Hinata want to get the place, dead bent on making it seem like the view from the balcony - a parking lot and a rundown fence - was something to look for when getting an apartment.

“What do you think? Really nice, right? Right?” the man from the office kept asking.

‘Really nice’ was stretching it, but Hinata was sure he was getting this one from the moment Kageyama sent him the picture of the offer, so the viewing was more of a formality. “I’m taking it,” Hinata said resolutely.

Some half an hour and a stack of papers signed later, Hinata and Kageyama went down the stairs of the building.

Hinata stretched his arms upwards, sighing. “I hate paperwork.”

Kageyama grunted in agreement. He had stayed quiet for the majority of the viewing, but he and Hinata shared peeved glances when the real estate worker got too much into trying to sell the unsellable. Kageyama’s face when the worker started talking about the neighbours made Hinata start laughing hard enough that he had to pretend he was coughing instead. Hinata smiled at the thought.

“Wanna go eat something?” he asked. “There were a few places on the way from the station. I was thinking I should check them out at some point since I’m gonna live here.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama said. “I’ve gotta eat before work. And I need to pay you back for before.”

They descended the last flight of stairs and started towards the gate. Two girls were walking in the direction of the apartment, holding hands, heads bowed towards each other as they spoke. One of them laughed, lifting their clasped palms just a little. 

The girls stopped smiling as soon as they noticed Hinata and Kageyama, and immediately let go of each other’s hands. With small bows they passed them, heading towards the staircase.

When Hinata looked over his shoulder, the girls went back to holding hands as soon as they started going up the stairs.

They hadn’t talked about it yet, Kageyama and he. Hadn’t even mentioned it in passing.

Hinata stopped halfway between the gate and the staircase of the building, Kageyama noticing and stopping too after taking another two steps. Kageyama turned slightly, looking at Hinata in puzzlement.

“I dated someone in college, for two months,” Hinata said. He paused, thinking about the most fitting words to express what he was trying to say. “It was a guy, a friend of a friend from one class. He was cool and nice, but neither of us was particularly invested. It was a testing ground, that thing we had. It ended as easily as it started. I never even told anyone about it - none of my friends at the time knew, my family had no clue. I haven’t told anyone.”

Kageyama’s mouth opened and closed. He looked lost. “Why are you telling me now?”

Hinata kicked at the ground. “Because I think I’m better off with you knowing than I am with keeping it a secret. Are you okay with that? Or should I have said nothing?”

Kageyama hid his hands in his pockets, staring down at his feet. “I don’t know. I think-” he stopped. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Nothing,” Hinata said. “There’s nothing that has to be done with it or about it. I only said it because I wanted to. Sometimes people say things because those things are worthy of being said to people worthy of trust.” He lifted his head, looking Kageyama in the eye, calm and heads-on. “I told you because I wanted to.”

Kageyama appeared to accept it, giving Hinata a short, slow nod. In the dusk it was hard to tell what expression exactly he was making and Hinata didn’t know what Kageyama was thinking as they walked towards the station.

He could only hope that he made it plain enough that he trusted Kageyama with things he didn’t tell anyone else. Regardless of how Kageyama felt about it.

They did stop at one of the eateries for less than half an hour, Kageyama in a slight rush to get to work on time. As they stood, blowing at their soups to make them cool a little faster, Hinata stirred, thinking. "Hey,” he said. “I have something to ask of you." 

"Again?" Kageyama asked, hissing in pain when he tried to swallow the still too hot soup, burning his tongue.

Hinata scowled. "Don't put it that way! It's a small request, I promise!" 

"Like helping you look for a new apartment?" 

"Way smaller than that this time." 

Kageyama went back to picking at his food. "No." 

"I didn't even tell you what it is!" 

"Something bothersome, I'm pretty sure." 

"It's-" Hinata stopped. "It kind of is, but I think you're gonna like it anyway." 

"I don't wanna." 

Hinata turned to face him. "Kageyama, come help me coach kids this weekend." 

Kageyama froze. His gaze darted up, searching Hinata's face, and his eyes slanted. "No." 

"Just this once. Just-" 

“Fuck no." Kageyama straightened to his full height. "And if you say another word about this I-" he hesitated. "I- I'll-" 

"You won't speak to me again? You will tell Tsukishima? Yamaguchi?" Hinata caught Kageyama's lost gaze. "Just this once. Please. Just come once. I won’t pester you about it again." 

Kageyama looked down at his bowl. “No,” he said, his jaw tightening to the point when one of the muscles in his cheek started trembling. “No way in fucking hell.”

Hinata bit at his lip. He pulled out his phone and opened the empty message thread with Kageyama, typing quickly and sending the message immediately. Kageyama startled when his phone buzzed. “This is the address and the time. In case you change your mind,” Hinata said and picked up his spoon.

Kageyama didn’t say anything, but when they parted ways at the station his expression was troubled, brow furrowed and gaze wayward.

Standing on the train home Hinata stared out of the window, unseeing. He knew he was asking a lot. He was asking for way more than ever before - to make Kageyama go back to his roots, confront something he has apparently been unable to confront for months. He was opening a wound, no doubt about that.

And Hinata wasn’t even sure he was doing the right thing. What if asking Kageyama to come to the practice was a mistake? What if Hinata has just erased the progress they have made? What if-?

He gasped when his stomach clenched, and grasped at it, nearly doubling over. He breathed in and out, twice, thrice, ten times before he managed to calm down. He shook his head minutely, at himself. The spiral was so easy to fall into.

He kept his promise to not pester Kageyama about the injury. Did Kageyama notice that? Did Kageyama notice that Hinata was doing his best to keep the promises he made? Was Kageyama aware that if he came to the practice once and hated it, Hinata wouldn’t speak of it again?

On the Saturday morning Hinata woke up and sat down on the yoga mat, closing his eyes as he cleared his thoughts.

Breathing slowly, emptying and filling his lungs with as much air as they could fit, in his mind Hinata pictured floating in the middle of the sky, nothing but the blue of the firmament above him and the white of the plush clouds below. There, up in the sky, was nothing to bother him, just him and the everlasting calm.

In that place he could pull his thoughts apart and piece them back together until they started making more sense. One thought at a time. One worry at a time, he methodically dismantled everything into primary pieces.

That was the place where he went when too many thoughts flooded his mind for him to be able to cope with.

The most pressing one floated up - what was Kageyama going to do? Was he going to show up? What was Hinata going to do if he did? If he didn’t?

Hinata opened his eyes when the timer went off and got up, resolute and calm.

“Patience,” he said out loud. Whatever Kageyama was going to do, Hinata would accept it and move on to something else. He was inclined to believe that Kageyama wouldn’t show up so he decided to accept it as inevitable.

But when he arrived at the sports centre an hour later and saw someone standing in front of the doors, he froze, disbelieving.

Kageyama, clad in a tracksuit, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, was staring at the building as if it contained the worst of his nightmares. Hinata, still a distance away, started forward, slowly walking up the stairs.

“Kageyama,” he said. “Hey. You- You came.”

Kageyama swiveled so suddenly Hinata startled. Kageyama’s expression was panicked. “I’m not-”

“It’s fine!” Hinata said. “You came. I didn’t think you would so I was surprised. Listen, I, uh-”

He nearly jumped when right behind him two voices rang in the quiet of the morning. “Hinata-san, good morning!” 

Kino and Inoue stood behind him, clutching at the straps of their bags eagerly. When Hinata didn’t reply straight away, they looked curiously past him and Kino’s eyes widened.

“Ka-” Kino said. “Kageyama Tobio! Japan!”

“Ah,” Hinata said. “Yeah. That’s him.”

“Hinata-san, you know Kageyama? But he is-”

“Yeah.” Hinata scratched at the back of his neck. “We went to school together. We- we played on the same team for three years.”

Kino’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’. Rendered speechless, he stared at Kageyama, who, in turn, couldn’t have looked more like a prey animal ready to run. The disparity between his countenance and his evident apprehension caused by a child half his height and a quarter of his weight was comical. 

Inoue, on the other hand, watched them without understanding. He looked up at Kageyama. “Who are you?”

Kino shoved at him. “That’s Kageyama Tobio! He was on Japan’s team up until a few years ago. I showed you recordings with him before.”

“I don’t remember,” Inoue said. He turned to Kageyama. “Were you cool?”

Hinata let out a startled snicker before he could stop himself. He pressed his hand to his mouth and took in a deep breath. “Yeah, he was really cool. Super cool. So incredibly good that it was infuriating,” he said. He put his hands on Kino’s and Inoue’s shoulders and gently steered them towards the centre. “And now we need to get going too so you can train and be cool like him, alright?”

“Kageyama-san, will you train with us?” Kino asked, digging his heels into the ground and refusing to budge. He was staring at Kageyama expectantly and his face fell when Kageyama started to shake his head. Kino’s gaze dropped to the ground and he finally let Hinata guide him in the right direction.

Hinata glanced over his shoulder, at Kageyama’s torn expression. Kageyama was staring at the boys as if his heart was being ripped apart, so pained Hinata felt his own throat squeeze.

What did Kageyama see when he was looking at them? Was it his past self, a child who would have given anything to even stand next to a pro player?

“It’s fine,” Hinata said. “Thanks for coming, I’ll see you later.”

“Wait,” Kageyama burst. He sucked in a breath, working his jaw, unable to formulate a proper sentence straight away. “I can’t jump,” he said finally. “Not with this leg.”

Hinata’s eyes widened. He let his hands fall back to his sides, giddiness spread through his body, a wave of energy that made him want to run and run until he dropped. A grin started to tug at the corners of his lips and he rubbed at his face to make it stop. “Just talk to them. Tell them what to do. They will figure it out.”

In the gym Kageyama stopped in the entrance, frozen.

“How long has it been?” Hinata asked him quietly.

“Over two years,” Kageyama said, his voice distant.

“High time, don’t you think?”

Kageyama whipped his head around to look at him. Hinata kept his gaze steady and pushed at Kageyama’s back with enough force that Kageyama stumbled inside.

Hinata followed him and stopped by his side, inhaling deeply. “I could never get enough of this smell,” he said. “Even when everything was going wrong, this never changed.”

Kageyama stayed silent, his mouth pressed in a line so tight it trembled.

After Kino and Inoue set everything up, in record time, and after dutifully following Hinata’s orders to warm up thoroughly, they stood in front of Kageyama and Hinata nearly vibrating off the floor as they shifted their gazes from Kageyama to Hinata, from Hinata to Kageyama, awaiting a single word.

Hinata pushed Kageyama forward again. “Kino-kun, take Kageyama-san here and have him watch you set. And you,” he said to Kageyama. “You make sure to be a good teacher.”

Kageyama scowled. He seemed lost at first, watching with his brow furrowed in trouble, but before long it shifted into concentration. Hinata had Inoue go through some spiking practice, Kino setting to him. They stopped when Kageyama lifted his hand.

“You’re having trouble delivering the ball to the proper height,” he said to Kino. “That’s why some of them fall through. There is a trick for that.”

Kino listened, rapt, as Kageyama explained. 

They slowed the pace some fifteen minutes later and Kino turned to Kageyama, his face troubled. “Kageyama-san, you didn’t play with Hinata-san ever again? After high school?”

Hinata froze, his heartbeat stilling. Hesitantly, he looked over his shoulder from where he was standing with Inoue practicing receives and his jaw clenched when he saw Kageyama’s expression fall.

“No,” Kageyama said. “Never again.”

Kino’s eyes dropped to the floor. “You must have been awesome together. Hinata-san is incredible. You are too. So...”

“We were,” Kageyama said. “We were really awesome. Our whole team was awesome.”

Hinata’s eyes stung as his breath hitched. He was not the only one. He was not the only one thinking that. He was not the only one missing that time-

He gasped, startled, when someone’s hand touched his. Inoue was staring at him, concerned. “Hinata-san?”

“I’m fine,” Hinata said. He rubbed at his eyes quickly with the back of his hand, pulling himself together. “You have to bend your knees more, y’know? And keep them relaxed. And then-”

The time flew by and before long the rest of the kids from the usual practice started appearing. The instant he felt more gazes staring at him with curiosity, Kageyama tensed.

Hinata clapped him on the shoulder. “I think that was enough for today,” he said. “Sit the rest out.”

Kageyama hesitantly turned to the benches and indeed spent the rest of the practice time just watching. Hinata glanced in that direction from time to time, to check if Kageyama was still there and if he was okay.

Kageyama looked calm, calculating, as he watched the kids play. In his eyes was a glint that Hinata recognized from a time long, long ago.

When the practice wrapped up, Hinata fetched Kageyama from the bench and they started towards the exit, silent. Outside, Hinata ran to the stairs and jumped down. He turned and looked up. “Kageyama,” he said. Kageyama stopped, standing one flight of the stairs up, his hands in his pockets, the wind messing up his hair. “Thanks for coming today.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama said. His expression was in a shift, alive, and Hinata couldn’t help a grin. He kept grinning to himself long after they parted ways at the station.

Hinata was right all along. That! That was what Kageyama needed.

His room was completely dark when Hinata woke up, disoriented, his phone ringing urgently and incessantly. The screen showed minutes after four am on a Sunday morning and Kageyama’s name.

Dazed and with his heart in his throat, Hinata picked up. “Kageyama?”

The sound, a tiny sniff that came from the other end of the line made his hand clutch at the fabric of the duvet he slept under, his palm beginning to shake. Kageyama’s voice was strangled and wavering. “Can you speak to me?”

Hinata cleared his throat, his heartbeat a thunder in his ears. “About what?”

“Anything,” Kageyama said. “Anything.”

The plea in Kageyama’s words was so clear that Hinata’s chest started to hurt. He swallowed, searching for anything to say that would fill the silence. “Remember Kenma, from Nekoma? Before going to college I squatted at his place for a few months while he was on an internship in some company. While he was there, he-”

Hinata spoke and spoke, recalling and sometimes making up small stories that people told him, meaningless and trivial instances, going off tangent for minutes at a time as he remembered something else before coming back to the original thought and then branching out again. He wasn’t even really thinking about it, instead letting his mouth run as it pleased, filtering nothing as he rummaged through the depths of his memory and imagination. Kageyama didn’t speak at all, but as time went on Hinata heard Kageyama’s breathing even out and soften.

“-and that’s how she said she knew. Said it was kind of funny in retrospect since she had all the evidence in plain sight from the beginning.” Hinata’s throat ran dry and he coughed. “Sorry. At that time-”

“Hinata,” Kageyama said quietly.

“Ah,” Hinata said. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. It’s alright.”

“Right. Right. You okay now?”

“Yeah.” Kageyama snuffled and immediately cleared his throat, no doubt to cover up the previous sound. “I’m okay.”

Hinata inhaled and slowly breathed out. “That’s good.”

“I’ll-” Kageyama hesitated. “I’ll see you later. Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Good, uh, morning, I guess. See you tomorrow.”

The line went quiet and the call disconnected. Hinata’s hand dropped, his phone tumbling out onto the covers. When he looked out through the window, the sun was rising, the sky painted in orange and pink. 

He curled up, pressing his knees and his hands to his chest, unable to breathe as anxiety crushed down on his whole body, its terrible weight unbearable and burning. When it abated, his cheeks were wet and his breathing erratic as if he had cried but he remembered none of it.

It was alright. They were going to be okay. Kageyama was able to reach beyond the walls of his sanctuary and his prison, and cry out for help. He wasn't alone. 

And Hinata wasn't alone either. Hinata wasn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> [linumlea.tumblr.com](https://linumlea.tumblr.com/)


End file.
